"At forty a man grows heavy and tired of fun and noise; Leaves dress to the five-and-twenties and love to the silly boys; No foppish tricks at forty, no pinching of waists and toes, But high-low shoes and flannels and good thick worsted hose." But one fine August morning I found myself awake My birthday:--By Jove, I'm forty! Yes, forty, and no mistake! Why, this is the very milestone, I think I used to hold, That when a fellow had come to, a fellow would then be old! But that is the young folks' nonsense; they're full of their foolish stuff; A man's in his prime at forty,--I see that plain enough; At fifty a man is wrinkled, and may be bald or gray; I call men old at fifty, in spite of all they say. At last comes another August with mist and rain and shine; Its mornings are slowly counted and creep to twenty-nine, And when on the western summits the fading light appears, It touches with rosy fingers the last of my fifty years. There have been both men and women whose hearts were firm and bold, But there never was one of fifty that loved to say "I'm old"; So any elderly person that strives to shirk his years, Make him stand up at a table and try him by his peers. Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver-crowned, Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told; Guilty of fifty summers; speak! Is the verdict _old_. No! say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, Losing his wits and temper, but pleading, to make amends, The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends. FOR THE FAIR IN AID OF THE FUND TO PROCURE BALL'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON 1630 ALL overgrown with bush and fern, And straggling clumps of tangled trees, With trunks that lean and boughs that turn, Bent eastward by the mastering breeze,-- With spongy bogs that drip and fill A yellow pond with muddy rain, Beneath the shaggy southern hill Lies wet and low the Shawinut plain. And hark! the trodden branches crack; A crow flaps off with startled scream; A straying woodchuck canters back; A bittern rises from the stream; Leaps from his lair a frightened deer; An otter plunges in the pool;-- Here comes old Shawmut's pioneer, The parson on his brindled bull! 1774 The streets are thronged with trampling feet, The northern hill is ridged with graves, But night and morn the drum is beat To frighten down the "rebel knaves." The stones of King Street still are red, And yet the bloody red-coats come I hear their pacing sentry's tread, The click of steel, the tap of drum, And over all the open green, Where grazed of late the harmless kine, The cannon's deepening ruts are seen, The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine. The clouds are dark with crimson rain Above the murderous hirelings' den, And soon their whistling showers shall stain The pipe-clayed belts of Gage's men. 186-