Greybeards at Play
A Dedication
TO E.C.B.
He was, through boyhood's storm and shower,
My best, my nearest friend;
We wore one hat, smoked one cigar,
One standing at each end.
We were two hearts with single hope,
Two faces in one hood;
I knew the secrets of his youth;
I watched his every mood.
The little things that none but I
Saw were beyond his wont,
The streaming hair, the tie behind,
The coat tails worn in front.
I marked the absent-minded scream,
The little nervous trick
Of rolling in the grate, with eyes
By friendship's light made quick.
But youth's black storms are gone and past,
Bare is each aged brow;
And, since with age we're growing bald,
Let us be babies now.
Learning we knew; but still to-day,
With spelling-book devotion,
Words of one syllable we seek
In moments of emotion.
Riches we knew; and well dressed dolls--
Dolls living--who expressed
No filial thoughts, however much
You thumped them in the chest.
Old happiness is grey as we,
And we may still outstrip her;
If we be slippered pantaloons,
Oh let us hunt the slipper!
The old world glows with colours clear;
And if, as saith the saint,
The world is but a painted show,
Oh let us lick the paint!
Far, far behind are morbid hours,
And lonely hearts that bleed.
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poem by G.K. Chesterton (1900)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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