HOPE

Men talk and dream of better days —

Of a golden time to come;

Toward a happy and shining goal

They run with a ceaseless hum.

The world grows old and grows young again,

Still hope of the better is bright to men.

Hope leads us in at the gate of life;

She crowns the boyish head;

Her bright lamp lures the stalwart youth,

Nor burns out with the gray-haired dead;

For the grave closes over his trouble and care,

But see — on the grave — Hope is planted there!

‘ Tis not an empty and flattering deceit,

Begot in a foolish brain;

For the heart speaks loud with its ceaseless throbs,

“We are not born in vain”;

And the words that out of the heart-throbs roll,

They cannot deceive the hoping soul.