For her health we used to inquire
In language friendly and soft;
Since then we have ask’d the same question
Of many old cats full oft.
We used to sit, while we wisely
Discoursed, in the way of old men,
And lamented that all was better
In the olden days than then;
How love and truth and religion
From out of the world had fled,
How very dear was the coffee,
How scarce was the gold, we said.
Those childish sports have vanish’d,
And all is fast rolling away;
The world, and the times, and religion,
And gold, love, and truth all decay.
41.
My heart is sore oppress’d, with sighing
I think upon the days of yore;
The world was then in calmness lying,
And men were peaceful evermore.
All now is changed, in mournful chorus
Want and confusion round us spread;
The Lord seems dead that erst rul’d o’er us
Beneath us, is the Devil dead.
All now appears so drear and sadden’d,
Decay’d and cold, of joy bereft,
That, were we not by love still gladden’d,
No single resting-place were left.
42.
As the gleaming moon is piercing
Through the darksome clouds above,
So from out time’s darksome mirror
Peeps a vision full of love.