Old Poets

If I should live in a forest

And sleep underneath a tree,

No grove of impudent saplings

Would make a home for me.

I'd go where the old oaks gather,

Serene and good and strong,

And they would not sigh and tremble

And vex me with a song.

The pleasantest sort of poet

Is the poet who's old and wise,

With an old white beard and wrinkles

About his kind old eyes.

For these young flippertigibbets

A-rhyming their hours away

They wo n't be still like honest men

And listen to what you say.

The young poet screams forever

About his sex and his soul;

But the old man listens, and smokes his pipe,

And polishes its bowl.

There should be a club for poets

Who have come to seventy year.

They should sit in a great hall drinking

Red wine and golden beer.

They would shuffle in of an evening,

Each one to his cushioned seat,

And there would be mellow talking

And silence rich and sweet.

There is no peace to be taken

With poets who are young,

For they worry about the wars to be fought

And the songs that must be sung.

But the old man knows that he's in his chair

And that God's on His throne in the sky.

So he sits by the fire in comfort

And he lets the world spin by.