Classic Poem

ON HIS EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

Four-score! That gallant stripling? No!
That passion-breathing Romeo,
Who climbed, last night, the garden wall,
Mocked by Mercutio's madcap call!

Four-score? What, he? Charles Surface? Nay;
He is as young as blooming May;
You do but jest; I know him well—
Who can forget wild Mirabel?

Whatever the costume, forsooth,
The same inimitable youth!
Marked you the sables Hamlet wore,
Dark-plumed, in moonlit Elsinore?

Gray locks? Believe the joke who can!
They “make him up” to play “old man”;
Pluck off the wig! Crow's-feet erase!
And recognize wag Murdoch's face!

Nay;—sober Time his card holds high,
And, swearing figures will not lie,
Adds up the years and proves the date:
See, in the ten's place, here, an eight.

So be it; Chronos, go thy ways;
Our friend grows old and full of days;
His frame may bend to Time's control,
But Time is servant to his soul.

His drama on the world's wide stage,
Now in the last calm scene, old age,
Has been throughout legitimate,
In motive true, performance great.

Whoever thus fulfils his part
Achieves the uttermost of art;
Who thus the scene of life has trod
Pleases the Manager—his God.

Or soon or late, exeunt all—
The bell will ring, the curtain fall,
And we, the actors, put away
The masking garments of the play.

When we from off the boards have passed,
And every light is out at last,
We'll leave the theater and go
Where real life replaces show.

Play out the play! and be content
To wait for that supreme event;
Dear Murdoch! master, father, friend,—
Star on! still bright'ning to the end!