Classic Poem

Rosy days of youth and fancy,
Happy hours of long ago!
Ah, the flickering sunbeam visions—
How they waver to and fro!

Galaxies of blue-eyed Marys,
With a Julia and a Jane,
And a troop of little Lauras,
Blush, and laugh, and romp again.

Moonlight meetings, dreamy rambles,
In the balm of summer night,
When our hearts were full of rapture
And our senses of delight;—

Those remember,—and remember
How the fond stars shone above,
Keeping, in their mellow splendor,
Watch and ward upon our love.

Youth is like a diamond dawning,—
Bold it breaks to gorgeous day;
Heavenly fires of power and beauty
Blaze and burn along its way.

Far within its mystic future
Oft are solemn voices heard!
Shaped to many a stately anthem
Floats the music of a word.

But that music, in the present,
Droops with passion's dull decay,
Till its echo in the spirit
Faints and fails and dies away.

Green be, then, the tender memory
Of the past, forever sped,
So that youth may be immortal,
Though its days and dreams are dead!