To live for present life, and feel no crime -- To see in life a merry-morrice craft, Where he has done the best who most has laughed Is Youth's fit heaven, nor thus the less sublime: But not to all men, in their best of prime, Is given by Nature this miraculous draught Of inward happiness, which, hourly quaffed, Seems to the reveller deep beyond all time. Therefore encumber not the sad young heart With exhortations to impossible joy, And charges of morose and thankless mood; For there is working in that girl or boy A power which will and must remain apart -- Only by love approached and understood. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE STREETS by LOUIS UNTERMEYER PISCATAQUA RIVER by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE PET NAME by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING TO AN ETHICAL PREACHER by BRENT DOW ALLINSON A DISAPPOINTMENT by JOANNA BAILLIE THE COMMON A-TOOK IN by WILLIAM BARNES SONG: THE DEATH OF THE ROSE by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT WRITTEN FOR A LADY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |