 | The Last Poems of Philip Freneau |  |
54
The Youth of the Mind
When Franklin,
old and bowed with years,
Felt every nerve unstrung,
His eyes bedimmed and deaf his ears,
A sophist made this odd remark,
“If to his eye the world is dark,
“If he is old
“And blood is cold,
“His mind is always young.”
Felt every nerve unstrung,
His eyes bedimmed and deaf his ears,
A sophist made this odd remark,
“If to his eye the world is dark,
“If he is old
“And blood is cold,
“His mind is always young.”
The sage remark I noted down,
But scarcely could believe,
For men I deem'd of high renown,
Like common men descend the hill,
Subject, like them, to dotage, 'till
In death's repose
Their days they close
And slumber in the Grave.
But scarcely could believe,
For men I deem'd of high renown,
Like common men descend the hill,
Subject, like them, to dotage, 'till
In death's repose
Their days they close
And slumber in the Grave.
When, now, he reach'd his eightieth year
I call'd upon the sage,
Admired to see, rejoiced to hear,
That all was true the Sophist said:
I saw his frame, his sight decayed,
But in his mind
Did clearly find
Him thirty years of age.
I call'd upon the sage,
Admired to see, rejoiced to hear,
That all was true the Sophist said:
I saw his frame, his sight decayed,
But in his mind
Did clearly find
Him thirty years of age.
And hence an argument I draw
That mind can never die:
The Body yields to nature's law,
But that, which animates the frame,
Forever lives, and is the same,
Whether it stray through empty space,
Whether it has, or has no place,
—'Tis young to all Eternity.
That mind can never die:
The Body yields to nature's law,
But that, which animates the frame,
Forever lives, and is the same,
Whether it stray through empty space,
Whether it has, or has no place,
—'Tis young to all Eternity.
| The Last Poems of Philip Freneau | |