 | Ballads and other verses |  |
125
A CHARACTER.
O happiest he, whose riper years retainThe hopes of youth, unsullied by a stain!
His eve of life in calm content shall glide,
Like the still streamlet to the ocean tide:
No gloomy cloud hangs o'er his tranquil day;
No meteor lures him from his home astray;
For him there glows with glittering beam on high
Love's changeless star that leads him to the sky;
Still to the past he sometimes turns to trace
The mild expression of a mother's face,
And dreams, perchance, as oft in earlier years,
The low, sweet music of her voice he hears.
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