Classic Poem

I WISH that the day were over,
The week, the month, and the year;
Yet life is not such a burden
That I wish the end were near.

And my birthdays come so swiftly
That I meet them grudgingly:
Would it be so were I longing
For the life that is to be?

Nay: the soul, though ever reaching
For that which is out of sight,
Yet soars with reluctant motion,
Since there is no backward flight.