KEEP OUT OF THE PAST.

Keep out of the Past! for its highways Are damp with malarial gloom; Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear. And everywhere molders a tomb. Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures, Finds only a rose turned to dust; And its storehouse of wonderful treasures Are covered and coated with rust.

Keep out of the Past. It is haunted: He who in its avenues gropes, Shall find there the ghost of a joy prized the most, And a skeleton throng of dead hopes. In place of its beautiful rivers, Are pools that are stagnant with slime; And these graves gleaming in a phosphoric light, Hide dreams that were slain in their prime.

Keep out of the Past. It is lonely, And barren and bleak to the view; Its fires have grown cold, and its stories are old— Turn, turn to the Present—the New: To-day leads you up to the hilltops That are kissed by the radiant sun, To-day shows no tomb, life’s hopes are in bloom, And to-day holds a prize to be won.