| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909. | | | | Time to Be Wise | | By Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) |
| | | YES; I write verses now and then, | |
| But blunt and flaccid is my pen, | |
| No longer talked of by young men | |
| As rather clever: | |
| In the last quarter are my eyes, | 5 |
| You see it by their form and size; | |
| Is it not time then to be wise? | |
| Or now or never. | |
| |
| Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! | |
| While Time allows the short reprieve, | 10 |
| Just look at me! would you believe | |
| ’Twas once a lover? | |
| I cannot clear the five-bar gate, | |
| But, trying first its timbers’ state, | |
| Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait | 15 |
| To trundle over. | |
| |
| Thro’ gallopade I cannot swing | |
| The entangling blooms of Beauty’s spring: | |
| I cannot say the tender thing, | |
| Be’t true or false, | 20 |
| And am beginning to opine | |
| Those girls are only half-divine | |
| Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine | |
| In giddy waltz. | |
| |
| I fear that arm above that shoulder, | 25 |
| I wish them wiser, graver, older, | |
| Sedater, and no harm if colder | |
| And panting less. | |
| Ah! people were not half so wild | |
| In former days, when, starchly mild, | 30 |
| Upon her high-heel’d Essex smiled | |
| The brave Queen Bess. | | | | |
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