kimberlysolache1025Lv1

31 Jan 2023

What effect does the number of lines in stanza 8 have on the poem?

From the text, "The Old Man Dreams"

 

1 For one hour of joyful youth!

2 Give back my twentieth spring!

3 I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy,

 

4 Than reign a gray-beard king!

 

5 Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!

6 Away with learning's crown!

7 Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

 

8 And dash its trophies down!

 

9 One moment let my life-blood stream

10 From boyhood's fount of fame!

11 Give me one giddy, reeling dream

 

12 Of life, all love and flame!

 

13 My listening angel heard the prayer,

14 And, calmly smiling, said,

15 "If I but touch thv silvered hair.

 

16 Thy hasty wish hath sped."

 

17 "But is there nothing in thy track

18 To bid thee fondly stay,

19 While the swift seasons hurry back

 

20 To find the wished-for day?"

 

21 Ah, truest soul of womanhood!

22 Without thee what were life?

23 One bliss I cannot leave behind:

 

24 I'll take-my-precious-wife!

 

25 The angel took a sapphire pen

26 And wrote in rainbow dew,

27 The man would be a boy again,

28 And be a husband tool"

 

29 "And is there nothing yet unsaid,

30 Before the change appears?

31 Remember, all their gifts have fled

32 With those dissolving years!"

33 Why, yes; for memory would recall

34 My fond paternal joys;

35 I could not bear to leave them all:

 

36 III take -my-girl-and-boys!

 

37 The smiling angel dropped his pen-

38 "Why, this will never do;

39 The man would be a boy again,

 

40 And be a father too!

 

41 And so I laughed-my laughter woke

42 The household with its noise-

43 And wrote my dream when morning broke

44 To please the gray haired boys.