Old-Fashioned Child. Poem by Robert Crawford

He was born old; they who got him were grey,
And quaint as things that long had seasoned here
When that he came — a too true vintage of
The lateness of the brewing blood and brain;
Even as in their whims and ways he had
Existed, an imaginary thing,
Twin-lived in him and her e'en long before
They were united in the dream of love.
And therefore comes it that his young life wears
So old a countenance, that he in sooth
Is so too grown-up in his ways and whims;
Unlike the youngling of an early pair,
Who's ta'en the freshness of their favour on,
And is as frisky as the youth of love.