Classic Poem

Back among the trees and trellises, along the leaf-strewn lane,
Sitting on the bank of the mill stream and dreaming dreams again,
Drinking water sweet as nectar from the bucket at the well,
In the orchard's leaf and silence, watching wind-falls as they fell,
Trying here, at five and thirty, just to be a boy again,
To recall the joys of boyhood and forget the cares of men;
But I listen to a lesson in the twitter of the wren:
When the boy's heart turns to man's it never throbs the same again.

Once the sun marks noon of lifetime, once the morning steals away,
Once the shadows growing shorter and then fall the other way,
Once the play time ends at manhood, once the frolicking is done,
Once the face is turned from dawning to the setting of the sun,
You may sit among the flowers that you plucked and threw away,
Turn the leaves of Time all backward, try to read them as you may,
You may kindle fires of Memory, you may sit and watch the flame,
But there's something changed within you that can never be the same.

You may lay aside the burden of your troubles as you will,
But the bent and sunken shoulders tell the story to you still;
The story of the troubles and the trials that are sealed
From the simple hearts of children, and to men alone revealed.
The sorrow dulls, the sigh is stilled, the sore hearts soothèd are,
The smarting wound is healed again, but always leaves a scar,
The fire of youth burns only once, and dies in its dead flame,
The simple heart of boyhood that can never be the same.

So I sit among the trellises and trees and wonder why:
Clear the air as in my boyhood and as blue the unflecked sky,
Full the leaves as ever blowing, sweet the bird songs and as free,
But the boy's heart that throbbed to them is untuned and dead in me.
There's a longing, longing, longing, speaking in a deep-drawn sigh,
For the heart that throbbed in boyhood, cloudless as the azure sky;
For the heart that was the sunlight and the air—that tongue nor pen
Can ever paint or picture—that I cannot know again.