The Old Man Dreams
O For one hour of youthful joy!
Give back my twentieth spring!
I ’d rather laugh a bright-haired boy
Than reign a gray-beard king!
Off with the spoils of wrinkled age!
Away with learning’s crown!
Tear out life’s wisdom-written page,
And dash its trophies down!
One moment let my life-blood stream
From boyhood’s fount of flame!
Give me one giddy, reeling dream
Of life all love and fame!
My listening angel heard the prayer,
And, calmly smiling, said,
“If I but touch thy silvery hair,
Thy hasty wish has sped.
“But is there nothing in thy track
To bid thee fondly stay,
While the swift seasons hurry back
To find the wished-for day?”
Ah! truest soul of womankind!
Without thee what were life?
One bliss I cannot leave behind:
I ’ll take—my—precious—wife!
The angel took a sapphire pen
And wrote in rainbow dew,
“The man would be a boy again,
And be a husband, too!”
“And is there nothing yet unsaid
Before the change appears?
Remember, all their gifts have fled
With those dissolving years!”
“Why, yes; for memory would recall
My fond paternal joys;
I could not bear to leave them all:
I ’ll take—my—girl—and—boys!”
The smiling angel dropped his pen—
“Why, this will never do;
The man would be a boy again,
And be a father, too!”
And so I laughed—my laughter woke
The household with its noise—
And wrote my dream, when morning broke,
To please the gray-haired boys.
About this poem
“The Old Man Dreams” is by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809–1894), the Boston physician, essayist and poet.
An old man begs for one more hour of youth and offers to give up all the wisdom and honours of age for it. His “listening angel” agrees, but asks: is there nothing you would keep? The answer comes as the gentle surprise of the last stanza — he cannot leave behind his “precious wife.” The quick ballad rhythm and the warm, humorous ending make it a celebration of a long marriage rather than a lament for lost youth.