Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE EXHAUSTION OF LIFE, by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE EXHAUSTION OF LIFE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The life of man is made of many lives
Last Line: And life remains a lapse of feeble hours.
Alternate Author Name(s): Houghton, 1st Baron; Houghton, Lord
Subject(s): Life


THE Life of man is made of many lives,
His heart and mind of many minds and hearts,
And he in inward growth most surely thrives
Who lets wise Nature order all the parts:

To each disposing what befits their scope,
To boyhood pleasures without care or plan,
To youth affections bright and light as hope,
Deep-seated passions to the ripened man.

Oh! well to say, and well if done as said:
But who himself can keep each separate stage?
Stand 'twixt the living feelings and the dead,
And give its special life to every age?

Who can forbid the present to encroach
On what should rest the future's free domain,
Holding the past undimmed by self-reproach,
Nor borrow joy at usury of pain?

Boyhood invades the phantasies of youth,
Rocked in imagination's golden arms,
And leaves its own delights of healthy truth
For premature and visionary charms.

Youth, to whom Poesy by right belongs
And every creature of the fairy race,
Turns a deaf ear to those enchanting songs,
And sees no beauty in that dreamy face,

But will, though by experience uninured,
Plunge into deepest gulfs of mental fire,
Trying what angels have in vain endured --
The toils of Thought -- the struggles of Desire:

So that when Manhood in its place at last
Comes and demands its labours and its powers,
The Spirit's energies are worn and past,
And Life remains a lapse of feeble hours.





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