Classic Poem

When the days in October grow shorter and colder,
And leaves are crimsoned by frost,
May these friends whom we love, growing grayer and older,
No days have to count as lost!
May the world still for them be a good world to live in,
With good in it always to do,
A good world to help and to comfort and give in,
With praise for the honest and true.
May they be never sick of hope deferred,
Nor in the field or vineyard toil in vain;
Nor words of kindness be by them unheard,
Nor thanklessness of children give them pain.