 | Poems of home and country |  |
THESE MODERN TIMES.
Life in these modern days strange freaks assumes;
Old truth retires, and feeble falsehood comes;
Fiction and fancy, all the live-long day,
And airy nothings, are the things that pay.
Old truth retires, and feeble falsehood comes;
Fiction and fancy, all the live-long day,
And airy nothings, are the things that pay.
The loudest, lightest, for the worthiest pass,—
As rise balloons, because their filled with gas.
Men scorn the wisdom of the hoary sage,
And eloquently boast this learned age:—
As rise balloons, because their filled with gas.
Men scorn the wisdom of the hoary sage,
And eloquently boast this learned age:—
An age of shallow wit and weak pretence,
Whose greatest want is want of common sense;
The gaping crowd admires each changing scene,
As some new wonder,—for the crowd is green.
Whose greatest want is want of common sense;
The gaping crowd admires each changing scene,
As some new wonder,—for the crowd is green.
Fashions and follies bear the masses by,
And silks and ribbons, with their rainbow dye,
Or flutter in the air, a graceful show,
Or sweep the dusty thoroughfares below.
And silks and ribbons, with their rainbow dye,
Or flutter in the air, a graceful show,
Or sweep the dusty thoroughfares below.
357
Along the street their gaudy pageants glide,
Gay as the butterflies of summertide,—
With equal beauty, equal lightness fraught,
As little burdened with the weight of thought.
Gay as the butterflies of summertide,—
With equal beauty, equal lightness fraught,
As little burdened with the weight of thought.
Perchance, but spendthrifts on an empty purse;
Perchance, the victims, too, of something worse.
An eloquence of manner often tells,
Some things have naught but tongues, besides church bells.
Perchance, the victims, too, of something worse.
An eloquence of manner often tells,
Some things have naught but tongues, besides church bells.
September, 1838.
| Poems of home and country | |