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<h2>CHANGED.</h2> I know not why my soul is rack’d    Why I ne’er smile as was my wont: I only know that, as a fact,       I don’t. I used to roam o’er glen and glade    Buoyant and blithe as other folk: And not unfrequently I made       A joke. A minstrel’s fire within me burn’d,    I’d sing, as one whose heart must break, Lay upon lay: I nearly learn’d       To shake. All day I sang; of love, of fame,    Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost became       A bore. I cannot sing the old songs now!    It is not that I deem them low; ’Tis that I can’t remember how       They go. I could not range the hills till high    Above me stood the summer moon: And as to dancing, I could fly       As soon. The sports, to which with boyish glee    I sprang erewhile, attract no more; Although I am but sixty-three       Or four. Nay, worse than that, I’ve seem’d of late    To shrink from happy boyhood—boys Have grown so noisy, and I hate       A noise. They fright me, when the beech is green,    By swarming up its stem for eggs: They drive their horrid hoops between       My legs:— It’s idle to repine, I know;    I’ll tell you what I’ll do instead: I’ll drink my arrowroot, and go       To bed. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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