Give ’em String and let ’em Went.
One is Age, the other Prime;
Up and down the hill our course is;
“Go in, ponies, make your time.”
Boyhood flies the whip of pleasure,
Youthful folly gives a stroke;
Manhood goads them at his leisure;
“Let ’em rip—they’re tough as oak.”
“Hi, yo! there: the stakes we’ll pocket;
To the winds let them be sent:
Time: 2 40—whip in socket:
Give ’em string and let ’em went.”
On the sunny road to fifty,
Prime is drown’d in Lethe’s stream;
Age is left old and unthrifty;
Life then proves a “one horse team.”
Age jogs on, grows quite unsteady,
Reels and slackens in his pace,
Kicks the bucket, always ready,
Gives it up—Death wins the race.