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...HYMN TO ADVERSITY by THOMAS GRAY EROTION by ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE LOST AT SEA by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH HYMNE (TO BE SUNG WITH THREE VOICES) by JOSEPH BEAUMONT PSALM 19 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON; A TRAGEDY by ROBERT BROWNING TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 4. PHILOLAUS TO DIOCLES by EDWARD CARPENTER |