I give you here a saying deep and therefore, haply true; 'Tis out of Merlin's prophecies, but quite as good as new: The question boath for men and meates longe voyages yt beginne Lyes in a notshell, rather saye lyes in a case of tinne. 20 But, though men may not travel now, as in the Middle Ages, With self-sustaining retinues of little gilt-edged pages, Yet one may manage pleasantly, where'er he likes to roam, By sending his small pages (at so much per small page) home; And if a staff and scallop-shell won't serve so well as then, Our outlay is about as small--just paper, ink, and pen. Be thankful! Humbugs never die, more than the wandering Jew; Bankrupt, they publish their own deaths, slink for a while from view, Then take an _alias_, change the sign, and the old trade renew; Indeed, 'tis wondrous how each Age, though laughing at the Past, 40 Insists on having its tight shoe made on the same old last; How it is sure its system would break up at once without The bunion which it _will_ believe hereditary gout; How it takes all its swans for geese, nay, stranger yet and sadder, Sees in its treadmill's fruitless jog a heavenward Jacob's-ladder, Shouts, _Lo, the Shining Heights are reached! One moment, more aspire!_ Trots into cramps its poor, dear legs, gets never an inch the higher, And like the others, ends with pipe and mug beside the fire. There, 'tween each doze, it whiffs and sips and watches with a sneer The green recruits that trudge and sweat where it had swinked whilere, 50 And sighs to think this soon spent zeal should be in simple truth, The only interval between old Fogyhood and Youth: 'Well,' thus it muses, 'well, what odds? 'Tis not for us to warn; 'Twill be the same when we are dead, and was ere we were born; Without the Treadmill, too, how grind our store of winter's corn? Had we no stock, nor twelve per cent received from Treadmill shares, We might ... but these poor devils at last will get our easy chairs. High aims and hopes have great rewards, they, too, serene and snug, Shall one day have their soothing pipe and their enlivening mug; From Adam, empty-handed Youth hath always heard the hum 60 Of Good Times Coming, and will hear until the last day come; Young ears Hear forward, old ones back, and, while the earth rolls on, Full-handed Eld shall hear recede the steps of Good Times Gone; Ah what a cackle we set up whene'er an egg was laid! _Cack-cack-cack-cackle!_ rang around, the scratch for worms was stayed, _Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!_ from _this_ egg the coming cock shall stalk! The great New Era dawns, the age of Deeds and not of Talk! And every stupid hen of us hugged close his egg of chalk, Thought,--sure, I feel life stir within, each day with greater strength, When lo, the chick! from former chicks he differed not a jot, 70 But grew and crew and scratched and went, like those before, to pot!' So muse the dim _Emeriti_, and, mournful though it be,