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 is middle life, 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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STANZAS TO A LADY, WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS by GEORGE GORDON BYRON DOROTHY Q; A FAMILY PORTRAIT by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ODE TO THE MAGUIRE by EOCHADH O'HUSSEY IN MEMORIAM: W.G. WARD by ALFRED TENNYSON A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 40 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT LETTICE by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY |