SAY, what is life! 'T is to be born; A helpless Babe, to greet the light With a sharp wail, as if the morn Foretold a cloudy noon and night; To weep, to sleep, and weep again, With sunny smiles between; and then And then apace the infant grows. To be a laughing, puling boy, Happy, despite his little woes, Were he but conscious of his joy; To be, in short, from two to ten, A merry, moody Child; and then? And then, in coat and trousers clad, To learn to say the Decalogue, And break it; an unthinking Lad, With mirth and mischief all agog; A truant oft by field and fen To capture butterflies; and then? And then, increased in strength and size, To be, anon, a Youth full-grown; A hero in his mother's eyes, A young Apollo in his own; To imitate the ways of men In fashionable sins; and then? And then, at last, to be a Man; To fall in love; to woo and wed; With seething brain to scheme and plan; To gather gold, or toil for bread; To sue for fame with tongue or pen, And gain or lose the prize; and then? And then in gray and wrinkled Eld To mourn the speed of life's decline; To praise the scenes his youth beheld, And dwell in memory of Lang-Syne; To dream awhile with darkened ken, Then drop into his grave; and then? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RESOLVE by MARY LEE CHUDLEIGH THE FLY by BARNABY (BARNABE) GOOGE THE FIGHT WITH THE SNAPPING TURTLE; OR, THE AMERICAN ST. GEORGE by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN CEDES COEMPTIS SALTIBUS ... by JOHN BYROM TO AN HOUR-GLASS by JOHN CLARE PHILOXIPES AND POLICRITE; AN ESSAY TO AN HEROIC POEM: CANTO 1 by CHARLES COTTON |