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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=418979" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Old Vagabond</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">HE was old and alone, and he sat on a stone to rest for awhile from the road:<br>His beard was white, and his eye was bright, and his wrinkles overflowed <br>With a mild content at the way life went; and I closed the book on my knee:<br>'I will venture a look in this living book,' I thought, as he greeted me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I said: ' My friend, have you time to spend to tell me what makes you glad?' <br>'Oh, ay, my lad,' with a smile; 'I'm glad that I'm old, yet am never sad!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But why?' said I; and his merry eye made answer as much as his tongue; <br>'Because,' said he, 'I am poor and free who was rich and a slave when young.<br>There is naught but age can allay the rage of the passions that rule men's lives; <br>And a man to be free must a poor man be, for unhappy is he who thrives: <br>He fears for his ventures, his rents and debentures, his crops, and his son, and his wife; <br>His dignity's slighted when he's not invited; he fears every day of his life. <br>But the man who is poor, and by age has grown sure that there are no surprises in years, <br>Who knows that to have is no joy, nor to save, and who opens his eyes and his ears <br>To the world as it is, and the part of it his, and who says: They are happy, these birds,<br>Yet they live day by day in improvident way—improvident? What were the words<br>Of the Teacher who taught that the field-lilies brought the lesson of life to a man? <br>Can we better the thing that is school-less, or sing more of love than the nightingale can? <br>See that rabbit—what feature in that pretty creature needs science or culture or care? <br>Send this dog to a college and stuff him with knowledge, will it add to the warmth of his hair?<br>Why should mankind, apart, turn from Nature to Art, and declare the exchange better-planned? <br>I prefer to trust God for my living than plod for my bread at a master's hand, <br>A man's higher being is knowing and seeing, not having and toiling for more; <br>In the senses and soul is the joy of control, not in pride or luxurious store. <br>Yet my needs are the same as the kingling's whose name is a terror to thousands: some bread, <br>Some water and milk,—I can do without silk,—some wool, and a roof for my head. <br>What more is possest that will stand the grim test of death's verdict? What riches remain <br>To give joy at the last, all the vanities past?—Ay, ay, that's the word—they are vain <br>And vexatious of spirit to all who inherit belief in the world and its ways. <br>And so, old and alone, sitting here on a stone, I smile with the birds at the days.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And I thanked him, and went to my study, head bent, where I laid down my book on its shelf;<br>And that day all the page that I read was my age, and my wants, and my joys, and myself.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Boyle+O%27Reilly">John Boyle O'Reilly</a><div class=q>
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His beard was white, and his eye was bright, and his wrinkles overflowed 
With a mild content at the way life went; and I closed the book on my knee:
'I will venture a l..."></div>
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