The Fountain Of Youth
READ AT THE MEETING OF THE HARVARD ALUMNI
ASSOCIATION, JUNE 25, 1873
THE fount the Spaniard sought in vain
Through all the land of flowers
Leaps glittering from the sandy plain
Our classic grove embowers;
Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles,
Here dwells eternal spring,
And warm from Hope's elysian isles
The winds their perfume bring.
Here every leaf is in the bud,
Each singing throat in tune,
And bright o'er evening's silver flood
Shines the young crescent moon.
What wonder Age forgets his staff
And lays his glasses down,
And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh
As when their locks were brown!
With ears grown dull and eyes grown dim
They greet the joyous day
That calls them to the fountain's brim
To wash their years away.
What change has clothed the ancient sire
In sudden youth? For, to!
The Judge, the Doctor, and the Squire
Are Jack and Bill and Joe!
And be his titles what they will,
In spite of manhood's claim
The graybeard is a school-boy still
And loves his school-boy name;
It calms the ruler's stormy breast
Whom hurrying care pursues,
And brings a sense of peace and rest,
Like slippers after shoes.--
And what are all the prizes won
To youth's enchanted view?
And what is all the man has done
To what the boy may do?
O blessed fount, whose waters flow
Alike for sire and son,
That melts our winter's frost and snow
And makes all ages one!
I pledge the sparkling fountain's tide,
That flings its golden shower
With age to fill and youth to guide,
Still fresh in morning flower
Flow on with ever-widening stream,
In ever-brightening morn,--
Our story's pride, our future's dream,
The hope of times unborn!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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Youth
Mood of youth,
Mood of youth,
Eagle-like must seek the blue,
Dauntlessly its course pursue,
All the mountain-heights must view.
Blood of youth,
Blood of youth,
Steam-like puts full-speed to sea,
E'en though storm and ice there be,
Makes its way and romps in glee.
Dream of youth,
Dream of youth,
Rogue-like stealing sets its snare
In the maiden's morning-prayer;
All the springtime, fragrant, glowing,
In its airy waves is flowing.
Joy of youth,
Joy of youth,
Waterfall-like foams in truth,
Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing,
Even while to death 't is dashing.
Joy of youth,
Dream of youth,
Blood of youth,
Mood of youth,
Clothe the world with colors golden,
Singing songs that never olden.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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To the venerable General Gaines
Though Time has silvered o'er thy honored head,
And left some traces on thy gallant form,
Upon thy soul no hoar-frost has he shed,
Nor chilled the heart that yet beats true and warm.
And he, in whom the glow of early feeling,
Youth's fire and ardor, are not dimmed and cold,
Who still life's morning freshness is revealing, --
Howe'er Time's record stands, can ne'er grow old.
The fabled fountain of immortal youth,
That Ponce de Leon sought with such unrest,
In far-off southern isles, thou'st found in truth;
Its living waters gush within thy breast.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Our Indian Summer
You 'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise,
With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes;
To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone
Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown.
Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall,
My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all;
If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand,
It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand.
There are noontides of autumn when summer returns.
Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns,
And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long,
Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song.
We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June;
Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune;
One moment of sunshine from faces like these
And they sing as they sung in the green-growing trees.
The voices of morning! how sweet is their thrill
When the shadows have turned, and the evening grows still!
The text of our lives may get wiser with age,
But the print was so fair on its twentieth page!
Look off from your goblet and up from your plate,
Come, take the last journal, and glance at its date:
Then think what we fellows should say and should do,
If the 6 were a 9 and the 5 were a 2.
Ah, no! for the shapes that would meet with as here,
From the far land of shadows, are ever too dear!
Though youth flung around us its pride and its charms,
We should see but the comrades we clasped in our arms.
A health to our future--a sigh for our past,
We love, we remember, we hope to the last;
And for all the base lies that the almanacs hold,
While we've youth in our hearts we can never grow old!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Youth is blind
Youth is power; youth is vigour;
Youth is initiative; youth is revolutionary;
Youth is dedication; youth is freedom;
Youth is love; youth is passion.
Yes, because youth is blind
Out of them elders make winds
01.01.2003
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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To H.a.b. On My Forty-seventh Birthday
WHEN one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;
He looks back to his lifeful past;
If age is silver, youth is gold:-
Could youth but last, could youth but last!
He turns back toward his youthful past
A-throb with life and love and hope,
Whose long-dead joys in memory last,
Whose shining days had ample scope;
He turns and lingers on the slope
Whose dusk leads down to sightless death:-
The sun once crowned that darkening cope,
And song once thrilled this weary breath.
Ali, he plods wearily to death,
Adown the gloaming into night,
But other lives breathe joyous breath
In morning's boundless golden light;
Their feet are swift, their eyes are bright,
Their hearts beat rhythms of hope and love,
Their being is a pure delight
In earth below and heaven above.
And you have hope and joy and love,
And you have youth's abounding life,
Whose crystal currents flow above
The stones and sands of care and strife.
May all your years with joys be rifc,
May you grow calmly to your prime,
A maiden sweet, a cherished wife,
A happy mother in due time.
All good you wish me, past my prime,
I wish with better hope to you,
And richer blessings than old Time
And Fate or Fortune found my due:
For you are kind and good and true,
And so when you are forty-seven
May spouse and children in your view
Make Home the happiest life-long Heaven.
poem by James Thomson
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A Madrigal
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare:
Youth is full of sports,
Age's breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild, and Age is tame:-
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O! my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee-
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Youth Youth Youth
Youth youth youth
Youth youth youth
Never wanna be an adult
Always wanna be in revolt
Youth youth youth
Youth youth youth
Don't wanna spend my life saving up for things
Don't wanna have what a steady job brings
I don't want security
Don't want responsibility
Don't wanna stay at home not making any noise
I've always got to be out
I've always got to have a choice
I don't want security
Don't want responsibility
Youth youth youth
Youth youth youth
I don't want no uniform
I don't want no book of rules
Youth youth youth
Youth youth youth
Never wanna be an adult
Always wanna be in revolt
Youth youth youth
Youth youth youth
I don't want no uniform
I don't want no book of rules
song performed by by Billy Idol
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Youth Of 1,000 Summers
He's the youth of a thousand summers
He's the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul. in my soul, in my soul
In my soul. in my soul. in my soul
And he looks so radiant
And he shines like the sun
And he looks so radiant
And he lights up the world
He's the youth of a thousand summers
He's the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
Yeah, love it, yeah, love it
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
He's the king of the mountain
And the clear crystal fountain
He's the saint of the river
He's the ancient of days
He's the youth of a thousand summers
He's the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
And he makes you go skipping
And he makes you go dancing
And he gets you in rhythm
And he moves you in song
He's the youth of a thousand summers
He's the youth of a thousand summers
Like a sweet bird of youth
Like a sweet bird of youth
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
In my soul, in my soul, in my soul
Oh, in my soul, in my soul, in my soul
And a sweet bird of youth
In my soul (repeat)
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Summons
Some day, when the golden glory
Of June is over the earth,
And the birds are singing together
In a wild, mad strain of mirth;
When the skies are as clear and cloudless
As the skies in June can be,
I would like to have the summons
Sent down from God to me.
Some glowing, golden morning
In the heart of the summer time,
As I stand in the perfect vigour
And strength of my youth's glad prime;
When my heart is light and happy,
And the word seems to bright to me,
I would like to dropp from this earth life,
As a green leaf drops from a tree.
I would not wait for the furrows -
For the faded eyes and hair;
But pass out swift and sudden,
Ere I grow heart-sick with care;
I would break some morn in my singing -
Or fall in my springing walk
As a full-blown flower will sometimes
Drop, all a-bloom, from the stalk.
I think the leaf would sooner
Be the first to break away,
Than to hang alone in the orchard
In the bleak November day.
And I think the fate of the flower
That falls in the midst of bloom
Is sweeter than if it lingered
To die in the autumn's gloom.
And so, in my youth's glad morning,
While the summer walks abroad,
I would like to hear the summons,
That must come, sometime, from God.
I would pass from the earth's perfection
To the endless June above:
From the fullness of living and loving,
To the noon of Immortal Love.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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To The Teachers Of America
TEACHERS of teachers! Yours the task,
Noblest that noble minds can ask,
High up Aonia's murmurous mount,
To watch, to guard the sacred fount
That feeds the streams below;
To guide the hurrying flood that fills
A thousand silvery rippling rills
In ever-widening flow.
Rich is the harvest from the fields
That bounteous Nature kindly yields,
But fairer growths enrich the soil
Ploughed deep by thought's unwearied toil
In Learning's broad domain.
And where the leaves, the flowers, the fruits,
Without your watering at the roots,
To fill each branching vein ?
Welcome! the Author's firmest friends,
Your voice the surest Godspeed lends.
Of you the growing mind demands
The patient care, the guiding hands,
Through all the mists of morn.
And knowing well the future's need,
Your prescient wisdom sows the seed
To flower in years unborn.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Reunion
The gulf of seven and fifty years
We stretch our welcoming hands across;
The distance but a pebble's toss
Between us and our youth appears.
For in life's school we linger on
The remnant of a once full list;
Conning our lessons, undismissed,
With faces to the setting sun.
And some have gone the unknown way,
And some await the call to rest;
Who knoweth whether it is best
For those who went or those who stay?
And yet despite of loss and ill,
If faith and love and hope remain,
Our length of days is not in vain,
And life is well worth living still.
Still to a gracious Providence
The thanks of grateful hearts are due,
For blessings when our lives were new,
For all the good vouchsafed us since.
The pain that spared us sorer hurt,
The wish denied, the purpose crossed,
And pleasure's fond occasions lost,
Were mercies to our small desert.
'T is something that we wander back,
Gray pilgrims, to our ancient ways,
And tender memories of old days
Walk with us by the Merrimac;
That even in life's afternoon
A sense of youth comes back again,
As through this cool September rain
The still green woodlands dream of June.
The eyes grown dim to present things
Have keener sight for bygone years,
And sweet and clear, in deafening ears,
The bird that sang at morning sings.
Dear comrades, scattered wide and far,
Send from their homes their kindly word,
And dearer ones, unseen, unheard,
Smile on us from some heavenly star.
For life and death with God are one,
Unchanged by seeming change His care
And love are round us here and there;
He breaks no thread His hand has spun.
Soul touches soul, the muster roll
Of life eternal has no gaps;
And after half a century's lapse
Our school-day ranks are closed and whole.
Hail and farewell! We go our way;
Where shadows end, we trust in light;
The star that ushers in the night
Is herald also of the day!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Villanelle
We said farewell, my youth and I,
When all fair dreams were gone or going,
And Love’s red lips were cold and dry.
When white blooms fell from tree-tops high—
Our Austral winter’s way of snowing—
We said farewell, my youth and I.
We did not sigh—what use to sigh
When Death passed as a mower mowing,
And Love’s red lips were cold and dry?
But hearing Life’s stream thunder by,
That sang of old through flowers flowing,
We said farewell, my youth and I.
There was no hope in the blue sky,
No music in the low winds blowing,
And Love’s red lips were cold and dry.
My hair is black as yet, then why
So sad! I know not, only knowing
We said farewell, my youth and I.
All are not buried when they die;
Dead souls there are through live eyes showing
When Love’s red lips are cold and dry.
So, seeing where the dead men lie,
Out of their hearts the grave-flowers growing,
We said farewell, my youth and I,
When Love’s red lips were cold and dry.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Idle Son
Young Benjamin left school this year
And stepped right in a job;
And he starts in hope of a life career,
Like his eldest brother, Bob.
But Sam, the lad who came between,
Born in the fateful year 'thirteen,
Still vainly seeks a place;
And the mark of his fate, too plainly seen,
Dawns in his listless face.
For Sam was born in a black year,
In the year of the world's black rage
To rob his youth of childish mirth;
And another curse was on the earth
In the year he came of age.
War and depression, this grim twain,
Have clouded life for a bright young brain.
Life smiles for Benjamin and Bob,
Each lucky in his age;
But the count of years falls ill to rob
Same of his heritage:
Too old for a youth's apprenticeship,
Untrained, too young for a man's firm grip,
Tho' a man in stature grown,
He lives to see his chances slip,
Thro' no fault of his own.
For Sam was born in a black year,
In a black year came from school.
But we who know past years of ease
Hold stern responsibilities
Ere his youthful ardours cool.
Ours is the duty, ours the task
To yield what youth has right to ask.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Never Die
Hands on a window pane
Watching some children laugh and play
They're running in circles
With candy canes and French braids
Inspired to question
What makes us grown-ups anyway?
Let's search for the moment
When youth betrayed itself to age
So let the children play
Inside your heart always
And death you will defy
'Cause your youth will never die
Never Die
In searching for substance
We're clouded by struggle's haze
Remember the meaning
Of playing out in the rain
We swim in the fountain
Of youth's timeless maze
If you drink the water
Your youth will never fade
So let the children play
Inside your heart always
And death you will defy
'Cause your youth will never die
Never Die
Never Die
Never Die
I won't let go of that youthful soul
Despite body and mind my youth will never die
I won't let go of that youthful soul
Despite body and mind my youth will never die
[Guitar Break]
So let the children play
Inside your heart always
And death you will defy
'Cause your youth will never die
So let the children play
Inside your heart always
And death you will defy
'Cause your youth will never die
Never Die
song performed by by Creed from Human Clay
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Youth And Age
Verse, a Breeze 'mid blossoms straying,
Where HOPE clung feeding, like a bee--
Both were mine ! Life went a-maying
With NATURE, HOPE, and POESY,
[Image][Image]When I was young !
When I was young ?--Ah, woful WHEN !
Ah ! for the Change 'twixt Now and Then !
This breathing House not built with hands,
This body that does me grievous wrong,
O'er æry Cliffs and glittering Sands,
How lightly then it flashed along :--
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore,
On winding lakes and rivers wide,
That ask no aid of Sail or Oar,
That fear no spite of Wind or Tide !
Nought cared this Body for wind or weather
When YOUTH and I lived in't together.
FLOWERS are lovely ; LOVE is flower-like ;
FRIENDSHIP is a sheltering tree ;
O ! the Joys, that came down shower-like,
Of FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, and LIBERTY,
[Image] [Image] [Image] [Image] Ere I was old !
Ere I was old ? Ah woful ERE,
Which tells me, YOUTH'S no longer here !
O YOUTH ! for years so many and sweet,
'Tis known, that Thou and I were one,
I'll think it but a fond conceit--
It cannot be that Thou art gone !
Thy Vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd :--
And thou wert aye a Masker bold !
What strange Disguise hast now put on,
To make believe, that thou art gone ?
I see these Locks in silvery slips,
This drooping Gait, this altered Size :
But SPRINGTIDE blossoms on thy Lips,
And Tears take sunshine from thine eyes !
Life is but Thought : so think I will
That YOUTH and I are House-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve !
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
[Image][Image]When we are old :
That only serves to make us grieve
With oft and tedious taking-leave,
Like some poor nigh-related guest,
That may not rudely be dismist ;
Yet hath outstay'd his welcome while,
And tells the jest without the smile.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Dead Leaves
When these dead leaves were green, love,
November's skies were blue,
And summer came with lips aflame,
The gentle spring to woo;
And to us, wandering hand in hand,
Life was a fairy scene,
That golden morning in the woods
When these dead leaves were green!
How dream-like now that dewy morn,
Sweet with the wattle's flowers,
When love, love, love was all our theme,
And youth and hope were ours!
Two happier hearts in all the land
There were not then, I ween,
Than those young lovers' -- yours and mine --
When these dead leaves were green.
How gaily did you pluck these leaves
From the acacia's bough,
To mark the lyric we had read --
I can repeat it now!
While came the words, like music sweet,
Your smiling lips between --
"So fold my love within your heart,"
When these dead leaves were green!
How many springs have passed since then?
Ah, wherefore should we count,
The years that sped, like waters fled
From Time's unstaying fount?
We've had our share of happiness,
Our share of care have seen;
But love alone has never flown
Since these dead leaves were green.
Your heart is kind and loving still,
Your face to me as fair,
As when, that morn, the sunshine played
Amid your golden hair.
So, dearest, sweethearts still we'll be,
As we have ever been,
And keep our love as fresh and true
As when these leaves were green.
poem by Edward Booth Loughran
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To My Son
Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother’s in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,
And touch thy father’s heart, my Boy!
And thou canst lisp a father’s name—
Ah, William, were thine own the same,—
No self-reproach—but, let me cease—
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother’s shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!
Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger’s breast;
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy,—
A Father’s heart is thine, my Boy!
Why, let the world unfeeling frown,
Must I fond Nature’s claims disown?
Ah, no—though moralists reprove,
I hail thee, dearest child of Love,
Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy—
A Father guards thy birth, my Boy!
Oh,’twill be sweet in thee to trace,
Ere Age has wrinkled o’er my face,
Ere half my glass of life is run,
At once a brother and a son;
And all my wane of years employ
In justice done to thee, my Boy!
Although so young thy heedless sire,
Youth will not damp parental fire;
And, wert thou still less dear to me,
While Helen’s form revives in thee,
The breast, which beat to former joy,
Will ne’er desert its pledge, my Boy!
poem by Byron (1807)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Rivulet
This little rill that, from the springs
Of yonder grove, its current brings,
Plays on the slope awhile, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new.
When woods in early green were drest,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,
With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.
And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how bright and gay
The scenes of life before me lay.
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak
Would bring the blood into my cheek,
Passed o’er me; and I wrote, on high,
A name I deemed should never die.
Years change thee not. Upon yon hill
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,
How swift the years have passed away,
Since first, a child, and half afraid,
I wandered in the forest shade.
Thou, ever-joyous rivulet,
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet;
And sporting with the sands that pave
The windings of thy silver wave,
And dancing to thy own wild chime,
Thou laughest at the lapse of time.
The same sweet sounds are in my ear
My early childhood loved to hear;
As pure thy limpid waters run;
As bright they sparkle to the sun;
As fresh and thick the bending ranks
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks;
The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up, as modest and as blue;
As green amid thy current’s stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress;
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen,
Still chirps as merrily as then.
Thou changest not—but I am changed
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I’ve tried the world—it wears no more
The coloring of romance it wore.
Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised in my earliest youth.
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.
A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of Fate
Indulge my life so long a date),
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood’s favorite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current’s merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.
And I shall sleep—and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,
Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age and die.
But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gayly shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shall pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shalt mock the fading race of men.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Reply Of The Fountain
HOW deep within each human heart,
A thousand treasured feelings lie;
Things precious, delicate, apart,
Too sensitive for human eye.
Our purest feelings, and our best,
Yet shrinking from the common view;
Rarely except in song exprest,
And yet how tender, and how true!
They wake, and know their power, when eve
Flings on the west its transient glow;
Yet long dark shadows dimly weave
A gloom round some green path below.
Who dreams not then—the young dream on—
Life traced at hope's delicious will;
And those whose youth of heart is gone,
Perhaps have visions dearer still.
They rise, too, when expected least,
When gay yourself, amid the gay,
The heart from revelry hath ceased
To muse o'er hours long past away.
And who can think upon the past
And not weep o'er it as a grave?
How many leaves life's wreath has cast!
What lights have sunk beneath the wave!
But most these deep emotions rise
When, drooping o'er our thoughts alone,
Our former dearest sympathies
Come back, and claim us for their own.
Such mood is on the maiden's mind
Who bends o'er yon clear fount her brow;
Long years, that leave their trace behind,
Long years, are present with her now.
Yet, once before she asked a sign
From that wild fountain's plaintive song;
And silvery, with the soft moonshine,
Those singing waters past along.
It was an hour of beauty, made
For the young heart's impassioned mood,
For love of its sweet self afraid,
For hope that colours solitude.
'Alas,' the maiden sighed, 'since first
I said, Oh fountain, read my doom;
What vainest fancies have I nurst,
Of which I am myself the tomb!
'The love was checked—the hope was vain,
I deemed that I could feel no more;
Why, false one, did we meet again,
To show thine influence was not o'er?
'I thought that I could never weep
Again, as I had wept for thee,
That love was buried cold and deep,
That pride and scorn kept watch by me.
'My early hopes, my early tears
Were now almost forgotten things,
And other cares, and other years
Had brought what all experience brings—
'Indifference, weariness, disdain,
That taught and ready smile which grows
A habit soon—as streams retain
The shape and light in which they froze.
'Again I met that faithless eye,
Again I heard that charmed tongue;
I felt they were my destiny,
I knew again the spell they flung.
'Ah! years have fled, since last his name
Was breathed amid the twilight dim;
It was to dream of him I came,
And now again I dream of him.
'But changed and cold, my soul has been
Too deeply wrung, too long unmoved,
Too hardened in life's troubled scene
To love as I could once have loved.
'Sweet fountain, once I asked thy waves
To whisper hope's enchanted spell;
Now I but ask thy haunted caves
To teach me how to say farewell.'
She leaned her head upon her hand,
She gazed upon that fountain lone
Which wandered by its wild-flower strand
With a low, mournful, ceaseless moan.
It soothed her with a sweet deceit
Of pity, murmured on the breeze;
Ah deep the grief, which seeks to cheat
Itself with fantasies like these.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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