LIFE’S YOUNG DREAM.
‘There is no Voice in Nature which says ‘Return.’’
Those envious threads, what do they here,
Amid thy flowing hair?
It should be many a summer’s day
Ere they were planted there:
Yet many a day ere thou and Care
Had known each other’s form,
Or thou hadst bent thy youthful head
To Sorrow’s whelming storm.
Oh! was it grief that blanched the locks
Thus early on thy brow?
And does the memory cloud thy heart,
And dim thy spirit now?
Or are the words upon thy lip
An echo from thy heart;
And is that gay as are the smiles
With which thy full lips part?
For thou hast lived man’s life of thought,
While careless youth was thine;
Thy boyish lip has passed the jest
And sipped the sparkling wine,
And mingled in the heartless throng
As thoughtlessly as they,
Ere yet the days of early youth
Had glided swift away.
They say that Nature wooeth back
No wanderer to her arms;
Welcomes no prodigal’s return
Who once hath scorned her charms.
And ah! I fear for thee and me,
The feelings of our youth
Have vanished with the things that were,
Amid the wrecks of truth.
Oh! for the early happy days
When hope at least was new!
Ere we had dreamed a thousand dreams,
And found them all untrue;
Ere we had flung our life away
On what might not be ours;
Found bitter drops in every cup,
And thorns on all the flowers.
Ye who have yet youth’s sunny dreams,
Oh guard the treasure well,
That no rude voice from coming years
May break the enchanted spell!
No cloud of doubt come o’er your sky
To dim its sunny ray,
Be careless children, while ye can,
Trust on, while yet ye may.
Albany, January, 1844.A. R.