Classic Poem

Oh! sweet it is, at times, to dream
Of the days of long ago;
When life was young, and hope was high,
And the heart knew naught of woe.

The storms of life were yet to come
And its victories and defeats:
But what cares youth for hidden thorns
While it gathers only sweets?

And if, perchance, some shadows fall
On its happy, sunlit way,
It gives them but a passing thought,
For its heart knows only day .

Life's stream runs on, in youth's glad hours,
As the brook that gayly speeds
Along a broken, rocky bed,
And its roughness scarcely heeds:

A ripple here, a struggle there
Where the rocks too rugged grow;
But still, alike, in blithesome glee,
Ever youth and brooklet flow.

Ah, happy days! though dear the scenes
That in memory's glass I see,
I would not yield for them the joys
That the present holds for me.

Yet when the eve of life is reached
And we face its winter's snow,
'Tis sweet to let the mind go back
To the days of long ago.