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Title: Gettin' On
Author: Eugene Field [
More Titles by Field]
WHEN I wuz somewhat younger,
I wuz reckoned purty gay;
I had my fling at everything
In a rollickin', coltish way.
But times have strangely altered
Since sixty years ago--
This age of steam an' things don't seem
Like the age I used to know.
Your modern innovations
Don't suit me, I confess,
As did the ways of the good ol' days,--
But I'm gettin' on, I guess.
I set on the piazza,
An' hitch round with the sun;
Sometimes, mayhap, I take a nap,
Waitin' till school is done.
An' then I tell the children
The things I done in youth,--
An' near as I can, as a vener'ble man,
I stick to the honest truth,--
But the looks of them 'at listen
Seem sometimes to express
The remote idee that I'm gone--you see?--
An' I am gettin' on, I guess.
I get up in the mornin',
An', nothin' else to do,
Before the rest are up an' dressed,
I read the papers through.
I hang round with the women
All day an' hear 'em talk;
An' while they sew or knit I show
The baby how to walk.
An', somehow, I feel sorry
When they put away his dress
An' cut his curls ('cause they're like a girl's!)--
I'm gettin' on, I guess.
Sometimes, with twilight round me,
I see, or seem to see,
A distant shore where friends of yore
Linger an' watch for me.
Sometimes I've heered 'em callin'
So tender-like 'nd low
That it almost seemed like a dream I dreamed,
Or an echo of long ago;
An' sometimes on my forehead
There falls a soft caress,
Or the touch of a hand,--you understand,--
I'm gettin' on, I guess.
[The end]
Eugene Field's poem: Gettin' On
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