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From “Festus”
SAY gray-beards what they please, | |
| The heart of age is like an emptied wine-cup; | |
| Its life lies in a heel-tap: how can age judge? | |
| ’T were a waste of time to ask how they wasted theirs; | |
| But while the blood is bright, breath sweet, skin smooth, | 5 |
| And limbs all made to minister delight; | |
| Ere yet we have shed our locks, like trees their leaves, | |
| And we stand staring bare into the air; | |
| He is a fool who is not for love and beauty. * * * * * | |
| None but the brave and beautiful can love. | 10 |
| Oh give me to the young, the fair, the free, | |
| The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world | |
| Which came between him and his heart’s delight. | |
| Mad must I be, and what ’s the world? Like mad | |
| For itself. And I to myself am all things, too. | 15 |
| If my heart thundered would the world rock? Well, | |
| Then let the mad world fight its shadow down. | |
| Soon there may be nor sun nor world nor shadow. | |
| But thou, my blood, my bright red running soul, | |
| Rejoice thou like a river in thy rapids. | 20 |
| Rejoice, thou wilt never pale with age, nor thin; | |
| But in thy full dark beauty, vein by vein | |
| Serpent-wise, me encircling, shalt to the end | |
| Throb, bubble, sparkle, laugh, and leap along. | |
| Make merry, heart, while the holidays shall last. | 25 |
| Better than daily dwine, break sharp with life; | |
| Like a stag, sunstruck, top thy bounds and die. * * * * * | |
| Oh! it is great to feel that nought of earth, | |
| Hope, love, nor dread, nor care for what ’s to come, | |
| Can check the royal lavishment of life; | 30 |
| But, like a streamer strown upon the wind, | |
| We fling our souls to fate and to the future. | |
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