Your music is ridiculous to me;
A hungry stomach has no ears at all."
( La Fontaine, Fables, Vol. IX, No. 17. Translated by the Rev. Wm. Lucas Collins.)
THREE Youths beheld with wondering eyes
A Man of Eighty planting Trees,
"To build were well, but at your age," said these,
"To plant is not so wise.
What good, in Heaven's name, can you devise
From such a task, unless indeed you live
To years by Patriarchs of old attained?
Why should your lees of life be strained
To furnish fruits that never can be yours?
Think only, you, of errors past;
Leave the high-soaring Hope, the Project vast,
To us the Young; of these the right is ours."
"It is not yours," the Old Man said. "The wine
Of Hope's precarious vintage mellows late.
Lasts little; and the withered hand of Fate
Juggles alike with Projects, yours and mine.
Our hold on life is equal—'tis so small:
For which of us may be the last to call
This general Light our own—the sunset hue
Or daybreak's soft betrayal into blue?
What single moment, as the moments speed
Assures that another will succeed?
Those who come after me will owe
