Tune -- in a Mouldering Cave IN his crazy arm chair, on the downhill of life, Old Simon, sat calm and resign'd; He had outliv'd his friends, he had buried his wife, Old Simon was lame, deaf and blind. But the Being of Love! who still tempers the blast With devotion had sweet'ned his mind; Her gay smiles, o'er his wrinkles, contentment had cast, And cheer'd him tho' lame, deaf and blind. His misfortunes, his woes, could you hear him relate; Insisting, they all were design'd To reclaim him from ill, or some bliss to create, You'd long to be lame, deaf and blind. When I learn, says Old Simon, that topics of State, Inflame each political chief; That they back-bite, snarl, slander, in noisy debate; Old Simon's content to be deaf. When Fashion, that tempter, than the serpent more sly, To folly, Eve's daughters inclin'd; When with scarce a fig-leaf, they obtrude on the eye; Old Simon's content to be blind. When battles' fell trumpets so frequently sound And blood marks our annals with shame, When abroad, war and murder, are raging around; At home, I'm content to be lame. Thus, this worthy old man, by contentment and pray'r, To the ills of his life was resign'd; And in death, he exclaim'd, as he sunk in his chair, What bliss, to the lame, deaf and blind. With chaplets of joy in regions above, His temples the angles entwin'd, Old Simon there blesses the Being of Love, Who here made him lame, deaf and blind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 12 by EZRA POUND CARELESS CONTENT by JOHN BYROM EYES AND TEARS by ANDREW MARVELL CUMNOR HALL by WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE A GENTLE ECHO ON WOMAN (IN THE DORIC MANNER) by JONATHAN SWIFT LITTLE BOATIE'; A SLUMBER SONG FOR THE FISHERMAN'S CHILD by HENRY VAN DYKE |