Upon a Venerable Rival

FULL thirty frosts since thou wert young

Have chill’d the wither’d grove,

Thou wretch! and hast thou lived so long

Nor yet forgot to love!

Ye Sages! spite of your pretences

To wisdom, you must own

Your folly frequently commences

When you acknowledge none.

Not that I deem it weak to love,

Or folly to admire;

But, ah! the pangs we lovers prove

Far other years require.

Unheeded on the youthful brow

The beams of Phœbus play;

But unsupported Age stoops low

Beneath the sultry ray.

For once, then, if untutor’d youth,

Youth unapproved by years,

May chance to deviate into truth,

When your experience errs;

For once attempt not to despise

What I esteem a rule:

Who early loves, though young, is wise,—

Who old, though gray, a fool.