Precepts For Young and Old
Precepts For Young and Old
Precepts For Young and Old
by H. W. Bidwell
I’d learn the spell that daily lures you ’midst the blossoms wild,
I’d join you and the butterflies with which you sport and play,
I’d like to scan the purity that halos your fair brow,
To fathom all the gentle thoughts that through your bosom flow—
But oh! the wish is doubly vain, ’tis not for heart like mine
To enter that pure heaven which forms the fairy land of thine.
Oh! happy, ten times happy, were you could you shun the wild
You cannot! then I’d say to you, retain as best you may
And bid you fear your passions more than all the world beside.
I’d have you honour age whose precepts now you hear with scorn,
Remember! we were men, my boy, long, long ere you were born,
Have trodden long ago the path which you have yet to tread,
And now bequeath experience which may serve you when we’re dead.
I’d like to speak a word with you, brave sir, in manhood’s prime!
The world seems now your heritage, and ’tis so—for a time.
Aspire! for ’tis your birthright, but remember while you mount
You’re but a steward and some day must yield up your account.
You’re wealthy!—turn not from the poor! they share your right to live,
Nor like the unjust creditor, seize all man’s laws allow,
You will need mercy at the last, see that you mete it now!
I’d speak to you, grey-headed man! now tottering at death’s door,
How wistfully you eye that past you never may recall,
And wish, since life must end like this, you’d never lived at all.
Oh! look to Him whom you despised, while ’twas your lot to live;
Haste! for that dark door opens! be saved while yet you may!
Alas! that it should close again, and you should pass away.