In the Valley of Contentment, just beyond the Hills of Old,
Where the streams are always silver and the sunshine always gold,
Where the hour is ever morning and the skies are never gray,
In the yellow haze of springtime stands the Castle Yesterday.
Oh, the seasons that we spent there when the whole wide world was young;
The friends we've had as maid and lad, the songs that we have sung!
The echoes of their music cannot quite have died away,
But still must thrill the roof-tree of the Castle Yesterday.
And the loving hearts we knew there in the time of trust and truth,
Surely still they wait behind us in the Pantheon of Youth!
But the angel of the valley at the portal bars our way,
And a flaming sword forbids us from the Castle Yesterday.
When the pilgrimage is ended, may we turn then, may we change
To the vanished and familiar from the present and the strange?
Who so chooses to his heaven—I shall be content to stay
Where the ghosts of dead years wander through the halls of Yesterday.
Definitions of "A Friend."
The first person who comes in when the whole world has gone out.
A bank of credit on which we can draw supplies of confidence, counsel, sympathy, help, and love.
One who combines for you alike the pleasures and benefits of society and solitude.