Young men soon give, and soon forget affronts; To elder years to be discreet and grave,
Old age is slow in both.
Then to old age maturity she gave.

ADDISON: Cato.

Now wasting years my former strength confound,
And added woes have bow'd me to the ground:
Yet by the stubble you may guess the grain,
And mark the ruins of no common man.
BROOME.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth as I am now.
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow
O'er hearts divided, and o'er hopes destroy'd.
BYRON Childe Harold.
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
CAMPBELL: Lochiel's Warning.

Nor can the snow that age does shed
Upon thy rev'rend head,

Quench or allay the noble fire within;
But all that youth can be thou art.

COWLEY.
Now then the ills of age, its pains, its care,
The drooping spirit for its fate prepare;
And each affection failing, leaves the heart
Loosed from life's charm, and willing to depart.
CRABBE.

Our nature here is not unlike our wine;
Some sorts, when old, continue brisk and fine:
So age's gravity may seem severe,
But nothing harsh or bitter ought t' appear.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Those trifles wherein children take delight
Grow nauseous to the young man's appetite,
And from those gaieties our youth requires
To exercise their minds, our age retires.
SIR J. DENHAM.
Age's chief arts, and arms, are to grow wise;
Virtue to know, and known, to exercise.
SIR J. DENHAM.

SIR J. DENHAM. Who this observes, may in his body find Decrepit age, but never in his mind.

SIR J. DENHAM.

Of Age's avarice I cannot see
What colour, ground, or reason there can be;
Is it not folly, when the way we ride
Is short, for a long journey to provide?

SIR J. DENHAM.

Not from grey hairs authority doth flow,
Nor from bald heads, nor from a wrinkled brow;
But our past life, when virtuously spent,
Must to our age those happy fruits present.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Age is froward, uneasy, scrutinous,
Hard to be pleased, and parsimonious.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Authority kept up, old age secures,
Whose dignity as long as life endures.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Old husbandmen I at Sabinum know,
Who for another year dig, plough, and sow;
For never any man was yet so old,
But hoped his life one winter more would hold.
SIR J. DENHAM.

Age by degrees invisibly doth creep,
Nor do we seem to die, but fall asleep.

SIR J. DENHAM.
Old age, with silent pace, comes creeping on,
Nauseates the praise which in her youth she won
And hates the muse by which she was undore
DRYDEN.

Thus daily changing, by degrees I'd waste,
Still quitting ground by unperceived decay,
And steal myself from life, and melt away.
DRYDEN

21

All of a piece throughout, and all divine.

but seems to a new youth to climb.
DRYDEN.

He look'd in years, yet in his years were seen
A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

DRYDEN.

Beroe but now I left; whom, pined with pain,
Her age and anguish from these rites detain.
DRYDEN.

You season still with sports your serious hours, O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of
For age but tastes of pleasures, youth devours.

DRYDEN.

This advantage youth from age hath won,
As not to be outridden though outrun.

DRYDEN.

When the hoary head is hid in snow,

The life is in the leaf, and still between

down,

Till with his silent sickle they are mown.

DRYDEN.

Jove, grant me length of life, and years good

store

Heap on my bended back.

DRYDEN.

The fits of falling snows appears the streaky The feeble old, indulgent of their ease.

green.

When we are old as you? When we shall hear | We will bestow you in some better place,—