- BRIGHT stars are not far ever bright,
- Clear skies for ever clear;
- But sun and shade, and bloom and blight,
- The glow of day and gloom of night,
- The bridal and the bier!
- First Childhood, with its wondering eye
- Undimmed by grief or care,
- Sports gay the summer streamlet by,
- Where young flowers blossom but to die
- Amid the autumn air.
- Youth changes swift to Manhood's prime,
- Days glide like shadows o'er;
- How like a dream of sunny clime,
- Passeth life's spring and summer time,
- To glad the heart no more!
- Stern Manhood, with his burnished brand,
- Half carves his name on high;
- The steel rusts in his withering hand,
- While his hopes perish, that were planned
- Of deeds too great to die!
- Age, from the tomb of buried years,
- Calls back the shadowy past.;
- A checkered scene of smiles and tears,
- Of vanished hopes, of griefs and fears,
- Gone like e dream at last.
- But let them pass – the flying hours
- Of morn and noon and even;
- For cloudless skies and fadeless flowers,
- Lone pilgrim, soon we know are ours,
- In yonder changeless heaven.
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