Volume I Part 89 (2/2)

My times be in thy hand!

Perfect the cup as planned!

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

Robert Browning [1812-1889]

HUMAN LIFE

Sad is our youth, for it is ever going, Crumbling away beneath our very feet; Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing, In current unperceived because so fleet; Sad are our hopes for they were sweet in sowing, But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat; Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing; And still, O still, their dying breath is sweet: And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us Of that which made our childhood sweeter still; And sweet our life's decline, for it hath left us A nearer Good to cure an older Ill: And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them.

Aubrey Thomas de Vere [1814-1902]

YOUNG AND OLD From ”The Water Babies”

When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every la.s.s a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown; And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down: Creep home, and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: G.o.d grant you find one face there You loved when all was young.

Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]

THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO

Oh, a wonderful stream is the River Time, As it flows through the realm of Tears, With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme, And a broader sweep and a surge sublime As it blends with the ocean of Years.

How the winters are drifting like flakes of snow!

And the summers like buds between; And the year in the sheaf--so they come and they go On the River's breast with its ebb and flow, As they glide in the shadow and sheen.

There's a magical Isle up the River Time Where the softest of airs are playing; There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime, And a voice as sweet as a vesper chime, And the Junes with the roses are staying.

And the name of this Isle is the Long Ago, And we bury our treasures there; There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow-- They are heaps of dust, but we loved them so!

There are trinkets and tresses of hair.

There are fragments of song that n.o.body sings, And a part of an infant's prayer, There's a harp unswept and a lute without strings, There are broken vows and pieces of rings, And the garments that she used to wear.

There are hands that are waved when the fairy sh.o.r.e By the mirage is lifted in air; And we sometimes hear through the turbulent roar Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, When the wind down the River is fair.

Oh, remembered for aye be the blessed Isle All the day of our life till night, And when evening comes with its beautiful smile, And our eyes are closing in slumber awhile, May that ”Greenwood” of soul be in sight.

Benjamin Franklin Taylor [1819-1887]

GROWING OLD

What is it to grow old?

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