 | Songs of Consolation |  |
1.
YOUTH, if I loved thee well,
If in thy frolic hours,
Broidered with birds and flowers,
Dearly I loved to dwell,
Oft of thy skittish spell,
I, by the heavenly powers,
Tired, of thy sweets and sours,
Shifting from heaven to hell.
If in thy frolic hours,
Broidered with birds and flowers,
Dearly I loved to dwell,
Oft of thy skittish spell,
I, by the heavenly powers,
Tired, of thy sweets and sours,
Shifting from heaven to hell.
Now is thy nesh tale told;
Turned is thy pictured page;
Changed are its blue and gold
Into the blank of age.
Solace in growing old
Yet is there for the sage.
Turned is thy pictured page;
Changed are its blue and gold
Into the blank of age.
Solace in growing old
Yet is there for the sage.
Youth is a sunny sea;
Age is an inland lake.
Often the tempests wake,
Often the wild waves flee,
Often the surge we see
Shallop and ship o'ertake,
Drive them to beach and break
Up on the land a-lee.
Age is an inland lake.
Often the tempests wake,
Often the wild waves flee,
Often the surge we see
Shallop and ship o'ertake,
Drive them to beach and break
Up on the land a-lee.
12
Over the lake the sky
Hangs with a saddened hue;
Seldom a sail flits by,
White on the sparkling blue:
Yet, if it sunless lie,
Stormless it lieth too.
Hangs with a saddened hue;
Seldom a sail flits by,
White on the sparkling blue:
Yet, if it sunless lie,
Stormless it lieth too.
| Songs of Consolation | |