Alfred Austin

“ You dear old Granny, how sweet your smile, and how soft your silvery hair! But all has moved on while you sate still in your cap and easy-chair. The torch of knowledge is lit for all, it flashes from hand to hand; The alien tongues of the earth converse, and whisper from strand to strand. The very churches are changed and boast new hymns, new rites, new truth; Men worship a wiser and greater God than the half-known God of your youth.
What! marry Connie and set up house, and dwell where my fathers dwelt, Giving the homely feasts they gave, and kneeling where they knelt? ”

“ Your eyes discern not the widening dawn, nor your ears catch the rising gales. But live on, Granny, till I come back, and then perhaps you will own The dear old past is an empty nest, and the present the brood that is flown. ”

“ He ranges free as the wind or the wave, and changes his shore like the foam. He drives his furrows through fallow seas, he reaps what the breakers sow, And the flash of his iron flail is seen mid the barns of the barren snow. ”