284 THE CARD-DEALER. Whom plays she with? With thee, who lov'st With me, who search her secret brows; A land without any order, Day even as night, (one saith,)— What be her cards, you ask? Even these:— More, having fed; the diamond Skilled to make base seem brave; The club, for smiting in the dark; And do you ask what game she plays? With thee it is playing still; with him But 'tis a game she plays with all Thou seest the card that falls,-she knows The card that followeth: Her game in thy tongue is called Life, As ebbs thy daily breath: When she shall speak, thou'lt learn her tongue D. G. Rossetti. YOUTH AND AGE. 285 YOUTH AND AGE VERSE, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, When I was young?-Ah, woful when! That fear no spite of wind or tide! Nought cared this body for wind or weather Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; O! the joys, that came down shower-like, Ere I was old! Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! 286 YOUTH AND AGE. O Youth! for years so many and sweet Dew-drops are the gems of morning, -That only serves to make us grieve S. T. Coleridge. 287 GROWING OLD. GROWING OLD. WHAT is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The lustre of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength Not our bloom only, but our strength-decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more weakly strung? Yes, this, and more! but not, Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dream'd 'twould be! 'Tis not to have our life Mellow'd and soften'd as with sunset glow, A golden day's decline! 'Tis not to see the world As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes, And weep, and feel the fulness of the past, It is to spend long days And not once feel that we were ever young. In the hot prison of the present, month And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel. Festers the dull remembrance of a change, It is last stage of all— When we are frozen up within, and quite To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost UP-HILL. M. Arnold. DOES the road wind up-hill all the way? Will the day's journey take the whole long day? But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn. Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before. Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Christina Rossetti. |