Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Young Again

Young Again.

An old man sits in a high-backed chair,
Before an open door,
While the sun of a summer afternoon
Falls hot across the floor;
And the drowsy tick of an ancient clock
Has notched the hour of four.

A breeze blows in and a breeze blows out,
From the scented, summer air;
And it flutters now on his wrinkled brow,
And now it lifts his hair;
And the leaden lid of his eye droops down,
And he sleeps in his high-backed chair.

The old man sleeps, and the old man dreams;
His head droops on his breast,
His hands relax their feeble hold,
And fall to his lap in rest:
The old man sleeps, and in sleep he dreams,
And in dreams again is blest.

The years unroll their fearful scroll—
He is a child again;
A mother's tones are in his ear,
And drift across his brain;
He chases gaudy butterflies
Far down the rolling plain;

He plucks the wild rose in the woods,
And gathers eglantine;
And holds the golden buttercups
Beneath his sister's chin;
And angles in the meadow brook
With a bent and naked pin;

He loiters down the grassy land,
And by the brimming pool;
And a sigh escapes the parting lips,
As he hears the bell for school;
And he wishes it were one o'clock,
And the morning never dull.

A mother's hands pressed on the head,
Her kiss is on his brow—
A summer breeze blows in at the door,
With the toss of a leafy bough;
And the boy is a white-haired man again,
And his eyes are tear-filled now.