Classic Poem

And Time, as in a stream,
Brings sons to take their fathers' room,
While mothers fade beside the bloom
Of daughters in a team;
Yes, young men reach their prime
Of life behind their elders' backs,
With children on their own life tracks
As in a stream of time.

The days of coming tides
Look fair before the mind, as shine
That row of treeheads in a line
Of moonpaled southern sides;
But to the backward gaze
Of him who looks to years farfled,
Dark as the timber's shady head
May seem those tides and days.

Yet hours for ever flown
Show not against our backward sight
Dim all, for some of them are bright,
And each with bliss its own;
And like some wheel-shaped flow'rs,
Or like a lamp-flame in a room,
Both fore and aft against the gloom
Shine fair those outrun hours.