[Elfsea] Bardic night canceled

[pcrandal at sbcglobal.net]

Age is the new theme? And here I thought Robert
Howard would provide. 
Thus I change streams to Lewis Carrol. 
	
You Are Old, Father William

"You are old, father William," the young man
said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned
before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his
grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling a
box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are
too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and
the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the
law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my
jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly
suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is
enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.




--- Darius <dmriney at earthlink.net> wrote:

>  THAT is no country for old men. The young
> In one another's arms, birds in the trees
> - Those dying generations - at their song,
> The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
> Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
> Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
> Caught in that sensual music all neglect
> Monuments of unageing intellect.
> 
> -Yeats
> 
>  An aged man is but a paltry thing,
> A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
> Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
> For every tatter in its mortal dress,
> Nor is there singing school but studying
> Monuments of its own magnificence;
> And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
> To the holy city of Byzantium.