Neghborly Poems and Dialect Sketches. Riley James Whitcomb

      And yet I find a sly

      Little twinkle in your eye;

      And your whisperingly shy

      Little laugh is simply an

      Internal shout of glee

      That betrays the fallacy

      You'd perpetrate on me,

      Old Man!

      So just put up the frown

      That your brows are pulling down!

      Why, the fleetest boy in town,

      As he bared his feet and ran,

      Could read with half a glance —

      And of keen rebuke, perchance —

      Your secret countenance,

      Old Man!

      Now, honestly, confess:

      Is an old man any less

      Than the little child we bless

      And caress when we can?

      Isn't age but just a place

      Where you mask the childish face

      To preserve its inner grace,

      Old Man?

      Hasn't age a truant day,

      Just as that you went astray

      In the wayward, restless way,

      When, brown with dust and tan,

      Your roguish face essayed,

      In solemn masquerade,

      To hide the smile it made

      Old Man?

      Now, fair, and square, and true,

      Don't your old soul tremble through,

      As in youth it used to do

      When it brimmed and overran

      With the strange, enchanted sights,

      And the splendors and delights

      Of the old "Arabian Nights,"

      Old Man?

      When, haply, you have fared

      Where glad Aladdin shared

      His lamp with you, and dared

      The Afrite and his clan;

      And, with him, clambered through

      The trees where jewels grew —

      And filled your pockets, too,

      Old Man?

      Or, with Sinbad, at sea —

      And in veracity

      Who has sinned as bad as he,

      Or would, or will, or can? —

      Have you listened to his lies,

      With open mouth and eyes,

      And learned his art likewise,

      Old Man?

      And you need not deny

      That your eyes were wet as dry,

      Reading novels on the sly!

      And review them, if you can,

      And the same warm tears will fall —

      Only faster, that is all —

      Over Little Nell and Paul,

      Old Man!

      O, you were a lucky lad —

      Just as good as you were bad!

      And the host of friends you had —

      Charley, Tom, and Dick, and Dan;

      And the old School-Teacher, too,

      Though he often censured you;

      And the girls in pink and blue,

      Old Man.

      And – as often you have leant,

      In boyish sentiment,

      To kiss the letter sent

      By Nelly, Belle, or Nan —

      Wherein the rose's hue

      Was red, the violet blue —

      And sugar sweet – and you,

      Old Man, —

      So, to-day, as lives the bloom,

      And the sweetness, and perfume

      Of the blossoms, I assume,

      On the same mysterious plan

      The master's love assures,

      That the self-same boy endures

      In that hale old heart of yours,

      Old Man.