Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/353

Rh As the bird wings and sings,

Let us cry, "All good things

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Therefore I summon age

To grant youth's heritage,

Life's struggle having so far reach'd its term:

Thence shall I pass, approved

A man, for aye removed

From the develop 'd brute; a god though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon

Take rest, ere I be gone

Once more on my adventure brave and new:

Fearless and unperplex'd,

When I wage battle next,

What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try

My gain or loss thereby;

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:

And I shall weigh the same,

Give life its praise or blame:

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,

A certain moment cuts

The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:

A whisper from the west

Shoots—"Add this to the rest,

Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."