 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems
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XXVI
A COLLEGE FOR DECAYED
MERCHANTS, II
Not seldom in these walks the Poet strolls,
And most when summer spreads her leaves; for then
Across the lawn his chair the cripple rolls,—
No bower but hath its agèd denizen:
And if from chapel-roof the slow bell tolls,
Saith Four-score-years to Three-score-years-and-ten,—
“We rest a college of immortal souls,
Albeit a company of dying men.”
What time desire for calm has waxen deep,
And life's hot energies are all decayed,
I think it would be grateful here to sleep,—
I think it would be pleasant so to fade,—
With scarce a clock to tell how minutes creep,
And curtained by this venerable shade.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems
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