The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts
compiled by William Fraser
London: William Pickering,
1828
| [Page 144] |  |
| VERSE, a breeze mid blossoms straying, | 1 |
| Where Hope clings feeding like a bee, | 2 |
| Both were mine! Life went a maying | 3 |
| With Nature Hope and Poesy. | 4 |
| When I was young! | 5 |
| When I was young? — Ah, woful when! | 6 |
| Ah, for the change 'twixt now and then! | 7 |
| This house of clay not built with hands, | 8 |
| This body that does me grievous wrong | 9 |
| O'er hill and dale and sounding sands, | 10 |
| How lightly then it flashed along: — | 11 |
| Like those trim boats, unknown of yore, | 12 |
| On winding lakes and rivers wide, | 13 |
| That ask no aid of sail or oar, | 14 |
| That fear no spite of wind or tide! | 15 |
| Nought cared this body for wind or weather, | 16 |
| When youth and I lived in't together. | 17 |
| Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like, | 18 |
| Friendship is a sheltering tree; | 19 |
| O the joys that come down shower like | 20 |
| Of Beauty, Truth and Liberty. | 21 |
| [Page 145] |  |
| Ere I was old! | 22 |
| Ere I was old? Ah woful ere, | 23 |
| Which tells me youth's no longer here! | 24 |
| O youth for years so merry and sweet, | 25 |
| 'Tis known that thou and I were one, | 26 |
| I'll think it but a false conceit, | 27 |
| It cannot be that thou art gone! | 28 |
| Thy vesper bell hath not yet toll'd, | 29 |
| And thou wert, aye a masker bold. | 30 |
| What strange disguise hast now put on, | 31 |
| To make believe that thou art gone? | 32 |
| I see these locks in silvery slips, | 33 |
| This dragging gait, this altered size; — | 34 |
| But spring tide blossoms on thy lips, | 35 |
| And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! | 36 |
| Life is but thought, so think I will | 37 |
| That youth and I are house-mates still. | 38 |
from The Bijou, 1828, pp. 144-145 |
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