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THE CENTENARIAN.
Ut puto deus fio.
To-day I tell my century of years,
With mind still verdant and the fount of tears
Still bubbling up in sweeter waves than wine,
And plenitude of human joy Divine;
For yet my heart is young, my bosom beats
With piston pulses and the fiery heats
Of everlasting summer, as if here
Within me was the centre of the Sphere
And I gave out the passion and the strife,
Which are the curtains of this clouded life
And tell us nothing of the star or clod,
Or of ourselves—if we are man or God.
But, as beyond the babble of each sect
And system, in a solemn retrospect
I now look back and weigh departed joys
And greatnesses, they seem but tiny toys
As of a moment, and the golden gain
Looks from this vantage-ground a cheat and stain
Across the staring record, and the skies
That lured me on were veils and vanities,
And I alone the real. And, as I guess,
Who cannot know, the world were emptiness
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And the Divinity is all within.
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