VII

And yet who would change the old dream for new treasure? 
  Make not youth’s sourest grapes the best wine of our life? 
Need he reckon his date by the Almanac’s measure
  Who is twenty life-long in the eyes of his wife? 
Ah, Fate, should I live to be nonagenarian,
  Let me still take Hope’s frail I.O.U.’s upon trust,
Still talk of a trip to the Islands Macarian,
  And still climb the dream-tree for—­ashes and dust!

AT THE BURNS CENTENNIAL

JANUARY, 1859

I

A hundred years! they’re quickly fled,
  With all their joy and sorrow;
Their dead leaves shed upon the dead,
  Their fresh ones sprung by morrow! 
And still the patient seasons bring
  Their change of sun and shadow;
New birds still sing with every spring,
  New violets spot the meadow.

II

A hundred years! and Nature’s powers
  No greater grown nor lessened! 10
They saw no flowers more sweet than ours,
  No fairer new moon’s crescent. 
Would she but treat us poets so,
  So from our winter free us,
And set our slow old sap aflow
  To sprout in fresh ideas!

III

Alas, think I, what worth or parts
  Have brought me here competing,
To speak what starts in myriad hearts
  With Burns’s memory beating! 20
Himself had loved a theme like this;
  Must I be its entomber? 
No pen save his but’s sure to miss
  Its pathos or its humor.

IV

As I sat musing what to say,
  And how my verse to number,
Some elf in play passed by that way,
  And sank my lids in slumber;
And on my sleep a vision stole. 
  Which I will put in metre, 30
Of Burns’s soul at the wicket-hole
  Where sits the good Saint Peter.

V

The saint, methought, had left his post
  That day to Holy Willie,
Who swore, ’Each ghost that comes shall toast
  In brunstane, will he, nill he;
There’s nane need hope with phrases fine
  Their score to wipe a sin frae;
I’ll chalk a sign, to save their tryin’,—­
  A hand ([Illustration of a hand]) and “Vide infra!"’ 40

VI

Alas! no soil’s too cold or dry
  For spiritual small potatoes,
Scrimped natures, spry the trade to ply
  Of diaboli advocatus;
Who lay bent pins in the penance-stool
  Where Mercy plumps a cushion,
Who’ve just one rule for knave and fool,
  It saves so much confusion!