| The more we live, more brief appear |
| Our life’s
succeeding stages: |
| A day to childhood seems a year, |
And years like
passing ages.
|
| The gladsome current of our youth, |
| Ere passion
yet disorders, |
| Steals lingering like a river smooth |
Along its
grassy borders.
|
| But as the careworn cheek grows wan, |
| And sorrow’s
shafts fly thicker, |
| Ye Stars, that measure life to man, |
Why seem your
courses quicker?
|
| When joys have lost their bloom and
breath |
| And life
itself is vapid, |
| Why, as we reach the Falls of Death, |
Feel we its
tide more rapid?
|
| It may be strange—yet who would change |
| Time’s course
to slower speeding, |
| When one by one our friends have gone |
And left our
bosoms bleeding?
|
| Heaven gives our years of fading
strength |
| Indemnifying
fleetness; |
| And those of youth, a seeming length, |
Proportion’d
to their sweetness.
|
| Thomas Campbell |
Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ Hohenlinden ] [ Freedom and Love ] [ Battle of the Baltic ] [ Lord Ullin's Daughter ] [ Ye Mariners of England ] [ To the Evening Star ] [ The River of Life ] |
