But the strangle hold of complimentary verse upon English poetry, if nothing else, would prevent this view being unanimously expressed there. For in the Victorian period, poets who began their literary careers by prophesying their early decease lived on and on. They themselves might bewail the loss of their gift in old age--in fact, it was usual for them to do so [Footnote: See Scott, _Farewell to the Muse_; Landor, _Dull is my Verse_; J. G. Percival, _Invocation_; Matthew Arnold, _Growing Old_; Longfellow, _My Books_; O. W. Holmes, _The Silent Melody_; C. W. Stoddard, _The Minstrel's Harp_; P. H. Hayne, _The Broken Chords_; J. C. MacNiel, _A Prayer_; Harvey Hubbard, _The Old Minstrel_.]--but it would never do for their disciples to concur in the sentiment. Consequently we have a flood of complimentary verses, assuring the great poets of their unaltered charm.[Footnote: See Swinburne, _Age and Song, The Centenary of Landor, Statue of Victor Hugo_; O. W. Holmes, _Whittier's Eightieth Birthday, Bryant's Seventieth Birthday_; E. E. Stedman, _Ad Vatem_; P. H. Hayne, _To Longfellow_; Richard Gilder, _Jocoseria_; M. F. Tupper, _To the Poet of Memory_; Edmund Gosse, _To Lord Tennyson on his Eightieth Birthday_; Alfred Noyes, _Ode for the Seventieth Birthday of Swinburne_; Alfred Austin, _The Poet's Eightieth Birthday_; Lucy Larcom, _J. G. Whittier_; Mary Clemmer, _To Whittier_; Percy Mackaye, _Browning to Ben Ezra_.] And of course it is all worth very little as indicating the writer's attitude toward old age. Yet the fact that Landor was still singing as he "tottered on into his ninth decade,"--that Browning, Tennyson, Swinburne, Longfellow, Whittier, Holme's, and Whitman continued to feel the stir of creation when their hair was hoary, may have had a genuine influence on younger writers. Greater significance attaches to the fact that some of the self-revealing verse lamenting the decay of inspiration in old age is equivocal, as Landor's Dull is my verse: not even thou Who movest many cares away From this lone breast and weary brow Canst make, as once, its fountains play; No, nor those gentle words that now Support my heart to hear thee say, The bird upon the lonely bough Sings sweetest at the close of day. It is, of course, even more meaningful when the aged poet, disregarding convention, frankly asserts the desirability of long life for his race. Browning, despite the sadness of the poet's age recorded in _Cleon_ and the _Prologue to Aslando_, should doubtless be remembered for his belief in The last of life for which the first was made, as applied to poets as well as to other men. In America old age found its most enthusiastic advocate in Walt Whitman, who in lines _To Get the Final Lilt of Songs_ indicated undiminished confidence in himself at eighty. Bayard Taylor, [Footnote: See _My Prologue_.] too, and Edward Dowden, [Footnote: See _The Mage_.] were not dismayed by their longevity.