They surely had time to repent,
To weep, and to sorrow, and pray;
But time that should thus have been spent,
Was wantonly squander’d away.
They quick were cut off at a stroke,
Were hurried away from our sight;
The bonds of their friendship all broke,
They fled like a dream of the night.
Though long in the grave they have lain,
And long since have gone to decay,
Remembrance can raise them again,
As fresh as they were in life’s day.
We remember the look of the face,
The language that glanc’d from the eye,
The cough, or the laugh, or some grace,
By which we their forms can descry.
How short our acquaintance appears,
Our pleasures, how swift was their flight!
Before we could number their years,
They fled as a dream of the night!
In manhood we sought it abroad,
And mix’d with the mirthful and gay,
When liberty lengthen’d the cord,
And tempted our feet far astray.
Then away to the races and fairs,
When seasons and friends did invite;
To the shows, to the stalls, and their wares,
And to music and dancing at night!
We sought it by land and by sea,—
Where’er we directed our eyes,
All said, “Pleasure is not in me!
My beauty is all a disguise!”
O Happiness! where dost thou dwell?
O where shall we search with success?
From the court to the cottage or cell,
All seem the abodes of distress!
Oft have we reflected with pain,
And fancied while counting the cost,
If restor’d to childhood again,
We’d recover the thing we had lost.