Classic Poem

If we could resurrect the years again,
When life is on the wane;
If we could learn by many a bitter truth
The value of our youth,
Ere the inexorable hand of Time
Has harvested our prime —
How we should drain from every flower we meet
The last drop of its sweet!
We scorn the present hour, and strive to borrow
Some foretaste of the morrow;
The morrow has its morrow and the pain
Of hope deferred again;
So waste the years, till Age defeated stands,
Desolate, with empty hands.

Pilgrims on paths our fathers trod before,
We trace their footsteps o'er;
On every height, in every vale we meet
Signs of their toiling feet
Gashed on the rock and wounded by the thorn,
Where we are stung and torn.
What was it that they sought? O burning eyes,
Fixed on low western skies!
The beckoning shapes that seem so fair to you
Wear the same dazzling hue
That lured the Vikings through tempestuous seas,
Beyond the Hebrides,
Toward purple isles of peace and golden lands, —
To die on freezing strands.

Time has no precious treasure stored away
Beyond our grasp to-day;
Earth has no secret garden of delight
Hid from our aching sight.
Too late we learn the humble highway flower
Is life's best gift and dower;
The light that kindles in meek, maiden eyes
Is love's divinest guise;
Too late, too late we find there is no more,
On any sea or shore,
Than those rich offerings we have overthrown,
Pursuing the unknown;
Nor any road by which we can attain
Youth's vanished grace again.