Old Poets

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