REFUTED.

It may be, yet I have not found it so.

In those first golden dreams of future fame

I did not find such happiness as came

When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know

My words have recognition and will go

Straight to some listening heart my early aim

To win the idle glory of a name

Pales like a candle in the noonday’ s glow.

So with the deeper joys of which I dreamed:

Life yields more rapture than did childhood’ s fancies,

And each year brings more pleasure than I waited.

Friendship proves truer than of old it seemed,

And, all beyond youth’ s passion-hued romances,

Love is more perfect than anticipated.