Classic Poem

I went for a day or two
To Sturley, but oh! I found
For old things, so many new,
'Twas hard to make out the ground.
How ev'ry thing wears away, well-a-day!
And never is at one stay.

And up on the knap, yet stood
A house, that the leaping flame
Half burnt, though 'tis now made good,
Half new, and but half the same;
And nigh it a toft was green, lauk-a-day!
With grass where a house had been.

Where once was the hollow oak,
A new house upreach'd a tun
Yet red, with its curling smoke
Outpour'd to the yellow sun.
And where the old horsepath lay, lauk-a-day!
Is now a broad waggon way.

And there a young stripling goes
Astride of a horse on wheels,
Onspurring his wheels by toes,
Instead of his side by heels!
And swiftly as shooting stars, lauk-a-day!
Sped nigh us a railway's cars.

By old friends, a less'ning few,
Were young in their elders' steads;
And, some of them show'd, 'tis true,
A likeness to dear old heads;
A likeness, but not the same, well-a-day!
Nor one I could call by name.

Some children of sires with plows,
Have now but a whip to wield;
Where some keep their herds of cows,
Their fathers had mown the field.
The poorest may ride his mare, on a day!
When now stirrupp'd feet are bare.