On The Busts Of Milton, In Youth And Age, At Stourhead

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IN YOUTH.

  Milton, our noblest poet, in the grace
  Of youth, in those fair eyes and clustering hair,
  That brow untouched by one faint line of care,
  To mar its openness, we seem to trace
  The front of the first lord of human race,
  'Mid thine own Paradise portrayed so fair,
  Ere Sin or Sorrow scathed it: such the air
  That characters thy youth. Shall time efface
  These lineaments as crowding cares assail!
  It is the lot of fall'n humanity.
  What boots it! armed in adamantine mail,
  The unconquerable mind, and genius high,
  Right onward hold their way through weal and woe,
  Or whether life's brief lot be high or low!


IN AGE.

  And art thou he, now "fall'n on evil days,"
  And changed indeed! Yet what do this sunk cheek,
  These thinner locks, and that calm forehead speak!
  A spirit reckless of man's blame or praise,--
  A spirit, when thine eyes to the noon's blaze
  Their dark orbs roll in vain, in suffering meek,
  As in the sight of God intent to seek,
  'Mid solitude or age, or through the ways
  Of hard adversity, the approving look
  Of its great Master; whilst the conscious pride
  Of wisdom, patient and content to brook
  All ills to that sole Master's task applied,
  Shall show before high heaven the unaltered mind,
  Milton, though thou art poor, and old, and blind!

© William Lisle Bowles