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Precepts For Young and Old

The poem addresses different stages of life, offering advice and precepts for each. It begins by speaking to a carefree child, encouraging them to retain their innocence. It then addresses a timid maiden, advising her to cherish her youth. For a bold youth, it cautions arrogance and encourages respecting elders. A man in his prime is reminded that wealth and success are temporary. Finally, an elderly man facing death is urged to seek forgiveness before it's too late. The overall message is to appreciate each stage of life and prepare for the next through humility, compassion, and faith.

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Cyra Bantillo
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2K views3 pages

Precepts For Young and Old

The poem addresses different stages of life, offering advice and precepts for each. It begins by speaking to a carefree child, encouraging them to retain their innocence. It then addresses a timid maiden, advising her to cherish her youth. For a bold youth, it cautions arrogance and encourages respecting elders. A man in his prime is reminded that wealth and success are temporary. Finally, an elderly man facing death is urged to seek forgiveness before it's too late. The overall message is to appreciate each stage of life and prepare for the next through humility, compassion, and faith.

Uploaded by

Cyra Bantillo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Precepts for Young and Old

by H. W. Bidwell

I’d like to speak a word to you, my pretty, careless child!

I’d learn the spell that daily lures you ’midst the blossoms wild,

I’d join you and the butterflies with which you sport and play,

As innocent, as beautiful, as fairy-like as they.

I’d like to scan the purity that halos your fair brow,

To fathom all the gentle thoughts that through your bosom flow—

But oh! the wish is doubly vain, ’tis not for heart like mine

To enter that pure heaven which forms the fairy land of thine. 

I’d like to speak a word with you, my timid blushing maid—

Pausing at every step you take as if you were afraid!

As if by instinct you foresaw the weeds of woe and strife,

That grow up in the pathway of your unseen future life.

Oh! happy, ten times happy, were you could you shun the wild

And rugged waste; and turning back for ever, be a child.

You cannot! then I’d say to you, retain as best you may

The pure and holy freshness of your childhood’s cloudless day!


I’d like to speak a word with you, my bold and wayward youth!

I’d counsel you to cherish in your heart the love of truth;’

I’d caution you ’gainst wantonness and arrogance and pride,

And bid you fear your passions more than all the world beside.

I’d have you honour age whose precepts now you hear with scorn,

Remember! we were men, my boy, long, long ere you were born,

Have trodden long ago the path which you have yet to tread,

And now bequeath experience which may serve you when we’re dead.

I’d like to speak a word with you, brave sir, in manhood’s prime!

The world seems now your heritage, and ’tis so—for a time.

Aspire! for ’tis your birthright, but remember while you mount

You’re but a steward and some day must yield up your account.

You’re wealthy!—turn not from the poor! they share your right to live,

Or God would not have made them:—as you’ve received, so give;

Nor like the unjust creditor, seize all man’s laws allow,

You will need mercy at the last, see that you mete it now!
I’d speak to you, grey-headed man! now tottering at death’s door,

Gazing on life’s red page, by sin and sorrow blotted o’er.

How wistfully you eye that past you never may recall,

And wish, since life must end like this, you’d never lived at all.

Oh! look to Him whom you despised, while ’twas your lot to live;

Remember! mercy is His will; His first wish to forgive.

Haste! for that dark door opens! be saved while yet you may!

Alas! that it should close again, and you should pass away.

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