HOW swift the years roll on, my friend, how swift the years roll on! They come and make their bows and bend, they smile and then they're gone! Some morning, in the mirror's face, we see a snowy hair; and ere we've time to dye the place, a hundred more are there. But yesterday my locks were brown, and life seemed in its dawn, and now the gray spreads o'er my crown—how swift the years roll on! But yesterday I held a child upon my willing knee; an infant innocent and mild, and beautiful was he; and now in tones of bass he speaks, he's learned to toil and spin, and he has whiskers on his cheeks, and more upon his chin. Oh, can this be that little child, this man of weight and brawn? How can the two be reconciled? How swift the years roll on! But yesterday my limbs were free from stiffness, pain and ache; and I could climb the tallest tree, or swim across a lake. But if I walk a block today, my wind and strength are gone; they take me homeward on a dray; how swift the years roll on! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE DEATH OF DR. ROBERT LEVET, A PRACTISER IN PHYSIC by SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) ON THE BUILDING OF SPRINGFIELD by NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY WILD SWANS by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE WANDERING JEW by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON AMY WENTWORTH; FOR WILLIAM BRADFORD by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE CHARWOMAN by GEORGE LAWRENCE ANDREWS THE BOOK OF LOS by WILLIAM BLAKE SONNETS OF SEVEN CITIES: SAN FRANCISCO by BERTON BRALEY THE WANDERER: PROLOGUE. PART 3 by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |