As for myself, after visiting a friend lately,—[Do remember all the time that this is the Professor’s paper.]—I satisfied myself that I had better concede the fact that—my contemporaries are not so young as they have been,—and that,—awkward as it is,—science and history agree in telling me that I can claim the immunities and must own the humiliations of the early stage of senility. Ah! but we have all gone down the hill together. The dandies of my time have split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes. The beauties of my recollections—where are they? They have run the gantlet of the years as well as I. First the years pelted them with red roses till their cheeks were all on fire. By and by they began throwing white roses, and that morning flush passed away. At last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after that no year let the poor girls pass without throwing snow-balls. And then came rougher missiles,—ice and stones; and from time to time an arrow whistled, and down went one of the poor girls. So there are but few left; and we don’t call those few _girls_, but— Ah, me! Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed _Aï_, _aï_! and the old Roman, _Eheu_! I have no doubt we should die of shame and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves. We always compare ourselves with our contemporaries. [I was interrupted in my reading just here. Before I began at the next breakfast, I read them these verses;—I hope you will like them, and get a useful lesson from them.] THE LAST BLOSSOM. Though young no more, we still would dream Of beauty’s dear deluding wiles; The leagues of life to graybeards seem Shorter than boyhood’s lingering miles. Who knows a woman’s wild caprice? It played with Goethe’s silvered hair, And many a Holy Father’s “niece” Has softly smoothed the papal chair. When sixty bids us sigh in vain To melt the heart of sweet sixteen, We think upon those ladies twain Who loved so well the tough old Dean. We see the Patriarch’s wintry face, The maid of Egypt’s dusky glow, And dream that Youth and Age embrace, As April violets fill with snow. Tranced in her Lord’s Olympian smile His lotus-loving Memphian lies,— The musky daughter of the Nile With plaited hair and almond eyes. Might we but share one wild caress Ere life’s autumnal blossoms fall, And Earth’s brown, clinging lips impress The long cold kiss that waits us all! My bosom heaves, remembering yet The morning of that blissful day When Rose, the flower of spring, I met, And gave my raptured soul away. Flung from her eyes of purest blue, A lasso, with its leaping chain Light as a loop of larkspurs, flew O’er sense and spirit, heart and brain.