Classic Poem

There is nothing can equal the tender hours,
When life is first in bloom;
When the heart, like a bee in a wild of flowers,
Finds everywhere perfume;
When the present is all, and it questions not
If those flowers shall pass away,
But, pleased with its own delightful lot,
Dreams never of decay.

O, it dreams not the hue that freshly glows
On the cheek shall ever flee,
And fade away like the summer rose,
Or the crimson on the sea,
When far in the west the setting sun
Goes down in the kindled main,
And the colors vanish one by one,
But never revive again.

O, life in its springtime dances on
In smiles and innocent tears;
It casts not a look to the moments gone,
But hails the coming years;
They shine before its fancy's eye,
Like eastern visions bright,
Gay as the hues in the western sky
At the coming on of night.

Thus happy in all their bosoms feel,
And in all their fancy dreams,
Their quiet moments onward steal
Like the silent flow of streams,
Gliding through tufted flowers away
To the far and unknown sea;
So on with a flight that cannot stay
Their days of innocence flee.

But soon, too soon their hearts shall know,
The future was falsely bright,
And its gay and far-deluding glow
Shall change to the gloom of night;
O, then with a fond and lingering eye
They shall turn to the early hours,
When life, as their moments hurried by,
Was a wild of sweets and flowers.