University of Virginia Library

THE ANNIVERSARY.

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

O suffer not a cloud thy brow to darken,
Nor let thy spirit in deep sadness hearken
To the low knell of thy departing hours;
Thou shouldst not grieve that Time still onward fleeteth,
For when thy steps the kindly gray-beard meeteth,
He pauses there to fling his freshest flowers.
Measured by thought, thou art of patriarch age,
Measured by feeling, thou art yet a boy:
And as thou ponderest on life's o'erpast page,
Thou seest each sorrow mated by a joy.
Why shouldst thou, then, at Time's swift flight repine,
When youth, and age, and hope, to bless thy years combine?
Wouldst thou recall thy dreams of early thought,
The wild pulsation of a heart o'erwrought
With its vain yearnings for a vague ideal?
Wouldst thou, again, crowd years into a day?
Again resign thy soul to passion's sway,
And grasp at rainbow joys, bright but unreal?
Rather rejoice that Time could thus accord
His soothing power to still each fierce emotion,
And bless the Heaven-directed hand that poured
The oil of peace on youth's tempestuous ocean,
And pointed out a beacon light to guide
Thy richly-freighted bark safe o'er the treacherous tide.