PRIDE OF YOUTH

Even as a child, of sorrow that we give

The dead, but little in his heart can find,

Since without need of thought to his clear mind

Their turn it is to die and his to live:

Even so the winged New Love smiles to receive

Along his eddying plumes the auroral wind,

Nor, forward glorying, casts one look behind

Where night-rack shrouds the Old Love fugitive.

There is a change in every hour's recall,

And the last cowslip in the fields we see

On the same day with the first corn-poppy.

Alas for hourly change! Alas for all

The loves that from his hand proud Youth lets fall,

Even as the beads of a told rosary!