‘Nay, my dear madam, but I count it gain.’-- “‘The world will blame us sure, if we be still.’-- ‘And, if we stir, you may be sure it will.’-- “‘Not to such loss your father had agreed.’-- ‘No, for my father’s had been loss indeed.’ “With gracious smile my mother gave assent, 450 And let th’ affair slip by with much content. “Some old dispute, the lover meant should rise, Some point of strife they could not compromise, Displeased the squire--he from the field withdrew, Not quite conceal’d, not fully placed in view; But half advancing, half retreating, kept At his old distance, and the business slept. “Six years had past, and forty ere the six, When Time began to play his usual tricks: The locks once comely in a virgin’s sight, 460 Locks of pure brown, display’d th’ encroaching white; The blood once fervid now to cool began, And Time’s strong pressure to subdue the man. I rode or walk’d as I was wont before, But now the bounding spirit was no more; A moderate pace would now my body heat, A walk of moderate length distress my feet. I show’d my stranger-guest those hills sublime, But said, ‘the view is poor, we need not climb.’ At a friend’s mansion I began to dread 470 The cold neat parlour, and the gay glazed bed; At home I felt a more decided taste, And must have all things in my order placed; I ceased to hunt, my horses pleased me less, My dinner more; I learn’d to play at chess; I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute Was disappointed that I did not shoot; My morning walks I now could bear to lose, And bless’d the shower that gave me not to choose: In fact, I felt a languor stealing on; 480 The active arm, the agile hand were gone; Small daily actions into habits grew, And new dislike to forms and fashion new; I loved my trees in order to dispose, } I number’d peaches, look’d how stocks arose, } Told the same story oft--in short, began to prose. } “My books were changed; I now preferred the truth To the light reading of unsettled youth; Novels grew tedious, but, by choice or chance, I still had interest in the wild romance. 490 There is an age, we know, when tales of love Form the sweet pabulum our hearts approve; Then as we read we feel, and are indeed, We judge, th’ heroic men of whom we read; But in our after life these fancies fail; We cannot be the heroes of the tale; The parts that Cliffords, Mordaunts, Bevilles play We cannot--cannot be so smart and gay. “But all the mighty deeds and matchless powers Of errant knights we never fancied ours, 500 And thus the prowess of each gifted knight Must at all times create the same delight; Lovelace a forward youth might hope to seem,