WHEN in our blithest youth we sing, We sing our saddest -- slack the string Of music into saddest key, And sob, with voices quavering In pangs of melody. When in maturer years -- When grown acquaint with sighs and tears -- Our voices ring a lighter tone, Our perverse harp peals o'er the moan -- A paean of hope that lifts and cheers. And last, in age's bleak extreme, With youth, life, love, all -- all a dream, What glad songs leap To our glad lips -- what raptures gleam In the old eyes -- too glad to weep. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IDEA: 14. TO TIME by MICHAEL DRAYTON CORN-LAW HYMN by EBENEZER ELLIOTT TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL by FRANCIS BRET HARTE THE BROWN THRUSH by LUCY LARCOM THE FLIGHT OF THE WAR-EAGLE by OBADIAH CYRUS AURINGER |