Old age has just touched with its winter
The hair on his lip and chin,
He stooped, no doubt, as he walked about,
And the blood in his veins was thin.
His date and his title I know not,
But I know that the man is there,
As cruel and cold as in days of old,
When he schemed for the Pontiff’s chair.
He never could get into Heaven,
Though his lands were all given to pay
For prayers to be said on behalf of the dead
From now till the judgment day.
His palace, his statues, and pictures
Were Heaven, at least for a time,
And now he is “Where?”—why an ornament there
On my wall, and I think him sublime.
For the gold of another sunset
Falls over him even now,
And it deepens the red of the cap on his head,
And it brings out the lines on his brow.
The ages have died into silence,
And men have forgotten his tomb,
But he still sits there in his cardinal’s chair,
And he watches me now in the gloom.
OLD LETTERS.
The house was silent, and the light
Was fading from the western glow;
I read, till tears had dimmed my sight,
Some letters written long ago.
The voices that have passed away,
The faces that have turned to mould,
Were round me in the room to-day,
And laughed and chatted as of old.