NINETY YEAR!
["In the retrospect of ninety years there is a pathetic mixture of gratitude for ample opportunities, and humiliation for insignificant performances."—Dr. James Martineau, on his Ninetieth Birthday.]
Air—Thackeray's "Age of Wisdom"
Ho! petty prattler of sparkling sin,
Paradox-monger, slave of the queer!
All your wish is a name to win,
To shook the dullards, to sack the tin,—
Wait till you come to Ninety Year!
Curled locks cover your shallow brains,
Twaddle and tinkle is all your cheer.
Sickly and sullied your amorous strains,
Pessimist praters of fancied pains,—
What do you think of this Ninety Year?
Ninety times over let May-day pass
(If you should live, which you won't I fear),
Then you will know that you were but an ass,
Then you will shudder and moan, "Alas!
Would I had known it some Ninety Year!"
Pledge him round! He's a Man, I declare;
His heart is warm, though his hair be grey.
Modest, as though a record so fair,
A brain so big, and a soul so rare,
Were a mere matter of every day.
His eloquent lips the Truth have kissed,
His valiant eyes for the Right have shone.
Pray, and listen—'twere well you list—
Look not away lest the chance be missed,
Look on a Man, ere your chance be gone!
Martineau lives, he's alive, he's here!
He loved, and married, seventy years' syne.
Look at him, taintless of fraud or fear,
Alive and manful at Ninety Year,
And blush at your pitiful pessimist whine!
Hamlet (amended by Lord Farrar).—"In my mind's eye, O ratio!"