IF YOUTH COULD KNOW
IF youth could know, what age knows without teaching,
Hope’s instability and Love’s dear folly,
The difference between practising and preaching,
The quiet charm that lurks in melancholy;
The after-bitterness of tasted pleasure;
That temperance of feeling and of words
Is health of mind, and the calm fruits of leisure
Have sweeter taste than feverish zeal affords;
That reason has a joy beyond unreason;