Behold a patriarch of years, who leaneth on the staff of religion;
His heart is fresh, quick to feel, a bursting fount of generosity:
He, playful in his wisdom, is gladdened in his children's gladness,
He, pure in his experience, loveth in his son's first love:
Lofty aspirations, deep affections, holy hopes are his delight;
His abhorrence is to strip from Life its charitable garment of Idea.
The cold and callous sneerer, who heedeth of the merely practical,
And mocketh at good uses in imaginary things, that man is his scorn:
The hard unsympathizing modern, filled with facts and figures,
Cautious, and coarse, and materialized in mind, that man is his pity.