Youth

Youth being gone, but not the dreams of youth, Life has lost nothing of its earlier fire: The pale star, newly risen, fades not quite As the dusk deepens round it into night But shines with gathering light and mounts the higher. Age is but youth’s husk if it still enfold Within it that glad heart of hope and truth Whose youth, outlasting youth, Can keep us young when years have made us old.

What though our hopes be stronger than our hands And we have followed many a dream in vain? Dearer is that we never gained than all We garnered; and with Hope’s clear clarion call Hushed on the height, our youth begins to wane And we grow old who else had time defied, And, growing old, endure no longer then, But leave our lives, as men Tired with long travel lay their loads aside.

If we had faith in death we should have faith In life, and age could touch our hearts no more; The sorrow-haunted world, whose restless moan Yearns saddening up to heaven like the lone Long surge of waters on a barren shore, Would laugh and labour with a heart at rest And pass unfaltering, knowing, strangely wise, Though sweet this life that dies, It is not all--it is not even best.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. London & Edinburgh

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, like this. One misspelled word was corrected.