An aging poet with writer’s block scours the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
by 
James Graham
|
Posted: Sunday, January 5, 2014 Word Count: 260 |
An aging poet with writer’s block scours the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Hard it is to teach an old horse amble true
Thou shouldst not have been old
till thou hadst been wise.
At my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity
They are not long, the days of wine and roses
Still nursing the unconquerable hope
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
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts
Pereant qui
ante nos nostra
dixerunt.
(Confound those
who have already written
our best thoughts.)
And the same to you,
Old Aelius Donatus!
Hard it is to teach an old horse amble true
Thou shouldst not have been old
till thou hadst been wise.
At my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity
They are not long, the days of wine and roses
Still nursing the unconquerable hope
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
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts
Pereant qui
ante nos nostra
dixerunt.
(Confound those
who have already written
our best thoughts.)
And the same to you,
Old Aelius Donatus!