When Youth is Gone.
HOW can we know when youth is gone,—
When age has surely come at last?
There is no marked meridian
Through which we sail, and feel when past.
A keener air our faces strike,
A chiller current swifter run;
They meet and glide like tide with tide,
Our youth and age, when youth is done.
The Fickle Heart.
CANST tell me, thou inconstant heart,
What like unto thou art?
A gypsy wandering up and down
Through April's green and Autumn's brown,
Until the year is spent;
And then, when hills are white with snow,
And brooks, ice-bound, have ceased to flow,
No place to pitch his tent.