The Country Town and Other Poems By the late William John Courthope ... With a Memoir by A. O. Prickard |
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CLAUDIAN'S ‘OLD MAN OF VERONA’ |
 | The Country Town and Other Poems |  |
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CLAUDIAN'S ‘OLD MAN OF VERONA’
Blest man, who in his boyhood's home has passedFrom youth to age, and finds that home his last!
Who, where he crawled a babe, with staff-propped hand
Scores still his farm's long annals in the sand!
No dupe of vain Ambition's swelling dreams;
No wandering waif who drinks of far-off streams;
Scared by no shipwreck, no alarm of war;
Vexed with no wranglings of the clamorous Bar;
He, letting town and politics pass by,
Enjoys the large horizon of his sky.
The years by crops, not consuls, he computes,
And spring and autumn marks by flowers or fruits.
One field at morning, and at evening one,
His dials, span the pathway of his sun.
He set the acorn germ of that tall tree,
And minds when yonder wood was young as he.
Verona seems like India to explore;
Benacus' lake is as the Red Sea shore.
No less the grandsons of his sons admire
His vigorous limbs and unabated fire.
Rush round the world, to earth's last limits roam!
Life's longest travels still are made at home.
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