Precepts for Young and Old
by H. W. Bidwell
I’d like
to speak a word to you, my pretty, careless child!
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,
As innocent, as beautiful, as fairy-like as they.
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.
I’d like
to speak a word with you, my timid blushing maid—
Pausing at every step you take as if you were afraid!
As if by instinct you foresaw the weeds of woe and strife,
That grow up in the pathway of your unseen future life.
Oh! happy, ten times happy, were you could you shun the wild
And rugged waste; and turning back for ever, be a child.
You cannot! then I’d say to you, retain as best you may
The pure and holy freshness of your childhood’s cloudless day!
I’d like
to speak a word with you, my bold and wayward youth!
I’d counsel you to cherish in your heart the love of truth;’
I’d caution you ’gainst wantonness and arrogance and pride,
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,
Or God would not have made them:—as you’ve received, so give;
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,
Gazing on life’s red page, by sin and sorrow blotted o’er.
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;
Remember! mercy is His will; His first wish to forgive.
Haste! for that dark door opens! be saved while yet you may!
Alas! that it should close again, and you should pass away.
Grahamstown, October 1, 1863.
