Classic Poem

Long life brings many a blessing;
With the years man's wisdom grows:
There are world-wide wrongs for redressing,
There are noble truths to disclose.
Yet ever man's heart keeps turning,
With a strange and a fathomless yearning,
To the beautiful bright young days
When the blue sea laughed in the bays, —
When the sunlight gilded the meadows,
In the beautiful bright young days!

There is love for the old in their season
(Bright gold is the autumn grain) —
But the love that knew nothing of reason,
Will it ever be with us again?
No: ever man's heart keeps turning
With a wild gaze tearful and burning
To the love of the sweet young days,
For the tenderest laughter is May's, —
The rich forest-gold is October's
But the rose and its splendour are May's!

So the songs that will perish never,
Be the world's age what it may,
That will haunt men's hearts for ever
Till the ashes of life turn grey,
Are the beautiful songs of yearning
Where the soul is swift and burning,
The songs of the bright young days
Ere flowers forsook the ways, —
The songs of the days that are vanished,
The beautiful bright young days!