The Effects of Age

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 their last quarter are my eyes,

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

Just look at me! Could you believe

’T was once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-barred gate,

But trying first its timber’s state,

Climb stiffly up, take breath and wait,

To trundle over.

Through galopade I cannot swing

Th’ entangling blooms of beauty’s spring,

I cannot say the tender thing,

Be ’t true or false.

And am beginning to opine

Those girls are only half-divine

Whose waists you wicked boys entwine

In giddy waltz.

I fear that arm above that shoulder,

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,

Upon her high-heeled Essex smiled

The brave Queen Bess.