POETRY.
AT TWENTY-THREE.
LIFE is delight, each hour that passes over
Comes like a maiden's kisses to her lover, Comes like the fresh breath of the mountain breeze, Comes like the south wind trembling through the trees ; Or like the song of larks above the heather, Or like a murmurous hum in sultry weather,— A dreamy bliss that knows no waking sorrow, A present joy that craves no happier morrow, When Love enthralls us till we hug the chain, And Beauty's smile is worth a miser's gain ;
When Hope is better than reality,
And Faith is boundless as the boundless sea.
Let worn-out cynics tell us Life's a jest, We know its glory and we feel its zest ; Let parsons, languid on fat livings, preach, That joy is something always out of reach ; Let pale ascetics deem God's world a gin
To lure mankind and womankind to sin,—
We reek not if dyspeptic fools agree, But laugh such creeds to scorn at twenty-three.
What though 'tis true that youth glides swiftly past ; That if we live we wear grey hairs at last ; That the keen rapture, and the wild delight, The joyous freedom of our manhood's might, The hopes, the fears, the passion and the glory,
Arc transient features of a transient story,—
That Love itself—youth's twin,—will scarcely stay Till Life has reached the summer of its day ; That even She, the maiden of our Spring, May fade ere Autumn's fruits be ripening ?— Time passes on but leaves its gifts behind, Rest for the heart, and riches for the mind.
If every year a golden apple fall, Each year makes captive of some glorious thrall ; Truth, knowledge, virtue,—all are ours to gain : Life stretches onward like an unknown main, Life stretches upward to the starry maze ; God's gates fly open at our ardent gaze ; A dazzling ray illumes the crystal sea, When Heaven lies near to earth at twenty-three.
JOHN DENNIS.
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