And so, I read my fate to-day,
From their faces cheerlessly—
What I’d not read upon my own,
That youth, with time, had surely flown,
And I with them had older grown;
The truth—I take it fearlessly.
And with a sigh o’er vanished years,
(I have no time to give to tears)
I near life’s noontide without fears,
Bearing its burdens silently;