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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SENCE YOU WENT AWAY by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ON THE SLAIN COLLEGIANS by HERMAN MELVILLE SONNET: 10 by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY DISCIPLINE by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH SORCERY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE SINGERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |