University of Virginia Library

ON AGE.

Pleasures! away; they please no more.
Friends! are they what they were before?
Loves! they are very idle things,
The best about them are their wings.
The dance! 'tis what the bear can do;
Music; I hate your music too.
Whene'er these witnesses that Time
Hath snatcht the chaplet from our prime,
Are call'd by Nature, as we go
With eye more wary, step more slow,
And will be heard and noted down,

215

However we may fret or frown,
Shall we desire to leave the scene
Where all our former joys have been?
No, 'twere ungrateful and unwise!
But when die down our charities
For human weal and human woes,
This is the time our eyes should close.