Classic Poem

We say not, that herein there may not be
Many exceptions. 'Tis the general rule
Which here we do record. Mortality
So early may have trained us in his school,
So soon, or ere life's salient spark did cool,
Our parents, from our grasp, may have been torn,
So soon we have been “pushed” as “from the stool”
Of life's brief empire, that bereft, forlorn,
Life, ere our life matured, may of its hope be shorn.