(For Robert Cortez Holliday) <br /> <br />If I should live in a forest <br /> And sleep underneath a tree, <br />No grove of impudent saplings <br /> Would make a home for me. <br /> <br />I'd go where the old oaks gather, <br /> Serene and good and strong, <br />And they would not sigh and tremble <br /> And vex me with a song. <br /> <br />The pleasantest sort of poet <br /> Is the poet who's old and wise, <br />With an old white beard and wrinkles <br /> About his kind old eyes. <br /> <br />For these young flippertigibbets <br /> A-rhyming their hours away <br />They won't be still like honest men <br /> And listen to what you say. <br /> <br />The young poet screams forever <br /> About his sex and his soul; <br />But the old man listens, and smokes his pipe, <br /> And polishes its bowl. <br /> <br />There should be a club for poets <br /> Who have come to seventy year. <br />They should sit in a great hall drinking <br /> Red wine and golden beer. <br /> <br />They would shuffle in of an evening, <br /> Each one to his cushioned seat, <br />And there would be mellow talking <br /> And silence rich and sweet. <br /> <br />There is no peace to be taken <br /> With poets who are young, <br />For they worry about the wars to be fought <br /> And the songs that must be sung. <br /> <br />But the old man knows that he's in his chair <br /> And that God's on His throne in the sky. <br />So he sits by the fire in comfort <br /> And he lets the world spin by.<br /><br />Joyce Kilmer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-poets/
