BERNARD, if to you and me Fortune all at once should give Years to spend secure and free, With the choice of how to live, Tell me, what should we proclaim Life deserving of the name? Winning some one else's case? Saving some one else's seat? Hearing with a solemn face People of importance bleat? No, I think we should not still Waste our time at others' will. Summer noons beneath the limes, Summer rides at evening cool, Winter's tales and home-made rhymes, Figures on the frozen pool -- These would we for labours take, And of these our business make. Ah! but neither you nor I Dare in earnest venture so; Still we let the good days die And to swell the reckoning go. What are those that know the way, Yet to walk therein delay? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ONLY ONE MOTHER by GEORGE COOPER THE QUAKER WIDOW by BAYARD TAYLOR SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD by WALT WHITMAN MR. STOTHARD TO MR. CROMEK by WILLIAM BLAKE SKETCHES OF THE TEXAS PRAIRIE: 'APRIL RAINS' by GEORGE BOND OBSERVATIONS IN THE ART OF ENGLISH POESY: 17. AN ELEGY by THOMAS CAMPION |