So day by day, and year by year,
It strikes a ceaseless knell,
For all that to my heart was dear,
For all I loved so well.
It tolls for youth and love and trust,
For joys and pleasures fled,
For dreams long gathered to the dust,
For hopes long cold and dead.
In mournful beats it ticks away
The moments of my span,
And makes me, when I would be gay,
A miserable man.
No other sound the silence breaks,
Save when with hollow boom
Its sad sepulchral voice awakes
The echoes of the tomb.
It shall not tick my life away—
Its raven croak no more
Shall tell me that I’m old and gray
And all my dreams are o’er!
My fist is through its gloomy face,
I wring its iron neck—
Thus! thus! I smash its heartless case,
And dance upon the wreck.
Hurrah, hurrah! for hope returns,
The mocking voice is still;
Within my breast ambition burns,
And all my pulses thrill.
That fateful tongue, thank God, I miss,
I know not how time flies;
And oh, where ignorance is bliss,
’Tis folly to be wise.
My Ambition.
HE hedges are green with the spring,
The sun is on meadow and lea,
The little birds merrily sing,
And the blossom is sweet on the tree.
I have wandered for many a mile—
All around is a feast for the eye;
So I’ll whittle a stick on this stile,
And I’ll grin as the girls go by.
I am far from the turmoil of town;
Here is rest in this Devonshire lane—
Here is rest from the world’s cruel frown,
Here is rest from the passion and pain.
Here, forgetting my woes for awhile,
I will sit ’neath the blue southern sky,
And whittle a stick on the stile,
And grin as the girls go by.
Sing on, little bird on the tree;
Little sunbeam, dance on and be gay;
Oh, the future is nothing to me!
And, Memory, please go and play.
Here, with nothing my temper to rile,
I would like to remain till I die;
And whittle a stick on the stile,
And grin as the girls go by.