Classic Poem

Of Human Life from youth to age
This Book an apt sad emblem seems;
Hope promises to fill each page
With Friendship, Love or Pleasure's dreams.

Time wears apace — but day by day,
Hope's promises are all forgot
Some flowers are scattered by the way
But here's a blank — and there's a blot.

At length they fill — revolving years
Add their memorials, sad, or kind,
But some are sullied by our tears,
And some have left a stain behind!

And when in after times we turn
Our Memory or our pages o'er
'Tis but too oft alas! to mourn
O'er all we knew — and know no more!

The hand that traced those lines is old —
The spirit that flashed here has fled —
And these recall warm hearts — now cold —
The changed — the absent — or the dead.

Then why should we embalm the past
Since the fond record only tells
That Love and Hope and Life at last
Are broken charms and baffled spells?

I do not know. ... They say that Eve
Some flowers of Eden chose to keep
O'er all she prized and left to grieve,
O'er all she loved and lost to weep!