I

The pale and misty particles of Time Hover about us; scarce our eyes can see Youth's far-off dream of what we were to be. Life's truth, which once we would redeem with rhyme, Has proved instead a world-worn pantomime. The running river of expediency Has drowned the hopes that Fortune held in fee-- Why fall upon the track so many climb?

Why strive to speak what all the earth has heard? Why labor at a work the ages plan?-- Life has been lived so oft--an outworn thing! Then hark! the time-sweet carol of a bird, New as a flower; and see--ah, shame to man! The endless aspiration of the Spring.