This much, at least, my devious muse would say: Our golden age, my friend, has passed away— Passed, with the careless dress, and elfin looks, That showed our books were trees and running brooks. But something more I would awhile recall, Then let, with lingering hand, the curtain fall. Dear to this heart—O now how passing dear, With the sad change of each dispatchful year!— Seems every waif of hours when life was new, Though home’s small scene contained its little view. Home that, however mean or grand, supplies A gay kaleidoscope to youthful eyes. Say not, gray Wisdom, that its wonders pass, The mere deceit of beads and broken glass. Here, to thy rugged front, and locks of snow, Thy solemn eye, and beard’s descending flow, I dare avouch, of life’s most pleasing way, The best is gilded with the morning ray. See all our life the coinage of our eye; (O shut thy book—let go philosophy!) In Youth the pennies pass, ’tis no less strange That Age and Manhood clink the silver change. Through all estates our joys alike are vain; Then chide not one who turns to youth again. One rainbow vision of youth’s earnest eyes Is worth a stack of staid philosophies. Fields, waters, forests where we roamed of yore, What thronging memories haunt ye evermore: In yonder glen the brook is gliding still, Whose turf-dammed waters turned the mimic mill. Yon wood still woos us to its deep embrace, Whose shadows wrought a summer’s resting place, When from our brows the caps were careless thrown, The hunter’s tackle and the game laid down, As the long daylight, wearing towards a close, Breathed the soft airs of languor and repose. There, stretched at length, we mused, with half shut eye, To the leaf-kissing wind’s light lullaby, That, ever and anon, with murmur deep, Did through the pine’s Æolian organ creep. Tired with the varied travel of the day, The sound of game unheeded passed away— The bursting thunder of a partridge wing— The frolick blue-jay’s nasal caroling— The tawny thrush, that peeped with curious look, A rustic starer, from his leafy nook— The crow, hoarse cawing as we met his eye— The squirrels, bickering on the oaks hard by; Red-liveried elves, who taught their brains to say— “Whene’er the cat doth sleep the mice may play.” No more they feared the gun’s successless skill, Banged with clear malice, and intent to kill, But shelled their nuts with self-complacent air, And chid as, plainly, for invading there. Through loopholes of the intertwisted green Came the far glimpse of many a sylvan scene—