By Luis. Dato
O grieve not that the roses,
Howe’er so sweet have closes,
Or that no love reposes,
But only vain dreams finds;
They only do not wither
In haunts away from hither,
Could we but hurry thither
On wings of April’s winds.
E’en love, what more immortal
When through its fiery portal
Of dreams, its arrows hurtle
Like light to flood the heart?
And yet so soon ’tis over,
And Youth, both loved and lover,
Erstwhile seeks to recover
In vain what had to part.
O sigh not that December
So soon puts out life’s ember,
And hardly we remember
That such things were one day;
They go, the reveries splendid,
Dreams and desire soon ended,
Like ghosts in the past are blended,
And memory pass away.
All pass, the soul’s beginning,
Like flowers from earth up-springing,
To yesterday all flinging
Away our dead desire,
Soon, deaf to all our sorrow,
Takes back the days we borrow,
And soon or late some morrow
Finds life a silent lyre.
