Classic Poem

They say we should not tell the young
That life is full of sorrow;
That if the sky be bright to-day,
A storm will come to-morrow;
That Love's delicious morning dream,
And Fancy's fine ideal,
Are mockeries of the actual,
The hard, unlovely real.

That Disappointment follows fast
The footsteps of Ambition;
That Hope's fair promises are false,
And come not to fruition;
That Fame is but an idle breath,
And lofty place and power
Are evanescent as the bow
That spans a summer shower.

That no man goes the way he would,
Nor wins the thing he wanted;
That brightest paths are set with thorns,
And fairest threshhold haunted;
That when we nearly grasp the prize
We sought with long endeavor,
Some seeming trifle bears it thence,
Beyond our reach forever.

That all the way to three-score-ten,
From life's serene beginning,
Is paved by every human soul
With failures, faults and sinning;
That all we get to have and hold,
When death shall loose life's fetter,
Is worthless, save our trust in God
For something surer, better.