A Green and Gangling Youth

A Song

A green and gangling youth was I
When first my heart was stolen;
A creature slim, with wild bright eye,
My lust's young bud had swollen.

With furnace-sighs, I whiled each hour,
The saddest ballads singing,
And plucked the petals of Love's Flower,
My lips with kiss-bells ringing.

O happy times of tingling chimes
With a ringling rhyme in Spring time!



A sear and withered shrivel now,
In Life's autumnal season;
I scarcely can remember how
My mind so lost its reason.

So piously, I sit and pray,
Soul-saving hymns a-singing;
I visit Church 'most every day,
Whene'er the bells are ringing.

O holy times of harping chimes
With a dwindling rhyme in Autumn time!
 © PB c1987