Massachusetts spy and Worcester advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1823-1825, 1825-02-09
Aoral a1t1 Relt0totts.
From the American Monthly Magazine. ]
YOUTH and OLD AGE.

1
| YOUTH AND OLD AGE.
81 came to the place of my birth, and said,
The friends of my youth, where are they, and
echo answered, Where are they?'
When the summer day of youth is
slowly wasting away into The night-fall
OF age, and the shadows of past years
grow deeper as life wears 10 a close, it
IS pleasant TO look back upon the vista
OF time, upon the sorrows and felicities
of earlier years.
If we have home to shelter, and
hearts to rejoice with us, and if friends
gather together around our fre-sides,
the rough places of our wayfaring will
be worn aud smoothed away 10 the twi-
light of life, whilst the sunny spots they
have passed through, grow brighter and
more beautiful
Happy indeed are those, whose inter-
course with the world has not changed
the tone of their holier feelings, nor
broken those musical chords of the
heart, whose vibrations are 80 melodfous,
so tender and touching, in the evening
OF age. As the current of time winds
slowly away, washing along with it the
sands OF life, and wasting The vigor of
greener years, like the stream that steals
away the saplng upon its bank, we
look with kind of melancholy AT the
decay OF things around us. To see the
trees, under whose shade we sat in ear
lier years and upon whose rinds we cav
ed our names in the light-hearted gal.
ETY. OF boyhood, as if those memorials of
our existence would long survive us :
10 see these whitening away, like our
selves, with the infrmities of age, ex-
cites within US mournful but pleasan.
feelings tor the past, and prophetic ones
for the future. The thoughts OCCASION
ed ny the frail and perishing records of
younger days, when the friends that are
now lingering like ourselves upon the
brink OF the grave, or have long been
asleep in its quiet bosom, were around
us, buoyant with the ardor of youthful
spirit, are like the dark clouds, when
the storm is gone, tinged by the farewell
rays Oh me SetIlng sun.
In these recollections of former fines.
The past and the present meet together
We go back again into the valley oil
youth, we gaze upon the vestiges we
lett behind us then, and tread in the
footsteps we trod in before. We re.
member the thoughtlessness and hiari.
ty, the summer and sunshine Of boyhood.
the hopes and fears, the aspirations and
reveries of youth; and we may remem.
Der, too. that those whose hearts were
llghtest, and whose hopes fhe fairest
were sooner than others summoned a.
way to the desolate and voiceless ball:
ofdeath.
OF those that were around us in the
spring-time of life, and went hand ia
hand with US through the summer Jour.
ney OF youth, nil perhaps have parted
from us on the verge of manhood, each
to pursue a separate path towards his
destination. This parting may have
been the last time we beheId them
from whom we never before parted
We recolect the farewell pressure O
! the hand, and the melancholy voice
whose tones we now think had some
thing prophetic in them, that told us we
were never to meet again. They hac
gone to distant climes, had become
l. strangers 10 strange lands, felt the chas
Jennings of adversely, and found rest from
the tolls and troubles of life in the re-
pose Of the tomb.
When we hear Of the death of iriend
when we know that those who love,
and were loved by US, have gone befor,
US into the vale ofdeath, and have fall
en- asleep upon the bosom of the earth
! never 10 awaken, the thousand endear
, menls and tenderresses that had wo1n,
unnoiced around our hearts. ant
strengthened with the lapse of wears
are broken and withered away, tbougl
I hardly without severing the chords O
: The heart with them. We call to MINI
: their genileness, their forgiying kindness
r and bcnevolence towards US and wit,
] these come the recollections of our ow,
: pride, our own revengeful thoughts, an,
, the swellings ofour hearts against them
'l-but our repentance is too late; ouI