(For Robert Cortez Holiday) <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 />Alfred Joyce Kilmer<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-poets-2/
