Читать книгу Neghborly Poems and Dialect Sketches - James Whitcomb Riley - Страница 4

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Lo! steadfast and serene, In patient pause between The seen and the unseen, What gentle zephyrs fan Your silken silver hair— And what diviner air Breathes round you like a prayer, Old Man?

Can you, in nearer view

Of Glory, pierce the blue

Of happy Heaven through;

And, listening mutely, can

Your senses, dull to us,

Hear Angel-voices thus,

In chorus glorious—

Old Man?

In your reposeful gaze

The dusk of Autumn days

Is blent with April haze,

As when of old began

The bursting of the bud

Of rosy babyhood—

When all the world was good,

Old Man.

And yet I find a sly

Little twinkle in your eye;

And your whisperingly shy

Little laugh is simply an

Internal shout of glee

That betrays the fallacy

You'd perpetrate on me,

Old Man!

So just put up the frown

That your brows are pulling down!

Why, the fleetest boy in town,

As he bared his feet and ran,

Could read with half a glance—

And of keen rebuke, perchance—

Your secret countenance,

Old Man!

Now, honestly, confess:

Is an old man any less

Than the little child we bless

And caress when we can?

Isn't age but just a place

Where you mask the childish face

To preserve its inner grace,

Old Man?

Hasn't age a truant day,

Just as that you went astray

In the wayward, restless way,

When, brown with dust and tan,

Your roguish face essayed,

In solemn masquerade,

To hide the smile it made

Old Man?

Now, fair, and square, and true,

Don't your old soul tremble through,

As in youth it used to do

When it brimmed and overran

With the strange, enchanted sights,

And the splendors and delights

Of the old "Arabian Nights,"

Old Man?

When, haply, you have fared

Where glad Aladdin shared

His lamp with you, and dared

The Afrite and his clan;

And, with him, clambered through

The trees where jewels grew—

And filled your pockets, too,

Old Man?

Or, with Sinbad, at sea—

And in veracity

Who has sinned as bad as he,

Or would, or will, or can?—

Have you listened to his lies,

With open mouth and eyes,

And learned his art likewise,

Old Man?

And you need not deny

That your eyes were wet as dry,

Reading novels on the sly!

And review them, if you can,

And the same warm tears will fall—

Only faster, that is all—

Over Little Nell and Paul,

Old Man!

O, you were a lucky lad—

Just as good as you were bad!

And the host of friends you had—

Charley, Tom, and Dick, and Dan;

And the old School-Teacher, too,

Though he often censured you;

And the girls in pink and blue,

Old Man.

And—as often you have leant,

In boyish sentiment,

To kiss the letter sent

By Nelly, Belle, or Nan—

Wherein the rose's hue

Was red, the violet blue—

And sugar sweet—and you,

Old Man—

So, to-day, as lives the bloom,

And the sweetness, and perfume

Of the blossoms, I assume,

On the same mysterious plan

The master's love assures,

That the self-same boy endures

In that hale old heart of yours,

Old Man.