Page:The Soul of a Century.djvu/102

 Should I then cast away life’s heavy role To gain my youth, but keep within my soul A memory of all Life took away And that I know from me again will seize? To know that youth’s ideals are fancy’s plays, Inspired mottoes, just words cast to the breeze. Should I return to Life’s young merriment With the mournful thought of how rare it is to hold A faithful friend, what shallow sentiment Is hid beneath even best friendship’s mold? How easily the warmest hands turn cool How oft hearts change, when the mask no more can fool.

How suddenly man shivers, left alone, Chilled by man’s selfishness, as cold as stone? Should I return then with a youthful heart To love-stirred yearning, though I understand That the aura that gives love its gilded part Is just a trinket from a story land? What I called heaven turns to earth once more Heavenly manna is only the bread of yore, That saintly love to which young dreams give birth Holds its airy throne high up above the earth. Should my ambition’s flame rise up again When I have learned that fame but sparks in vain, That it is not worth the anguish and defeat That empty, hollow laurel’s woven wreath Should I retain within my memories nook, How small, deceitful all that our young soul Sees hallowed with perfections very look? How futile is this earthly sham and role Where ’neath the banners of ideals and dreams And to the tunes of jeweled words, as tools They speak of honor, truth and love’s sweet schemes While only passion and cold metal rules?

Away tempting glass I will be satisfied With my grey hairs Tis easier to bear The weight of age than youth of sham deprived It is this sham that gives youth charm and glare When Life’s crude hand destroys the golden thread Of youthful dreams, and when the eye through tears Sees the emptiness of earthly joy and dread, And man in vain weeps for his bygone years. Then but in vain we seek lost Eden’s shore Deprived of all the charms it knew before.