That nothing satisfies the soul like truth;
That kindness conquers in and out of season,—
If youth could know—why, youth would not be youth.
If age could feel the uncalculating urgence,
The pulse of life that beats in youthful veins,
And with its swift, resistless ebb and surgence
Makes light of difficulties, sport of pains;
Could once, just once, retrace the path and find it,
That lovely, foolish zeal, so crude, so young,
Which bids defiance to all laws to bind it,