LIFE'S "little lines;" how short, how faint,
     How fast they fade away;
Its highest hopes, its brightest joys,
     Are compassed, in a day.

Youth's bright, and mild, and morning light,
     Its sunshine, and its showers,
Its hopes and fears, its loves and tears,
     Its heedless, happy hours;
And manhood's high and brightened noon,
     Its honours, dangers, cares,
The parents' pains, the parents' joys,
     The parents' anxious prayers;
Fade in old age's evening gray,
     The twilight of the mind;
Then sink, in death's long, dreamless night,
     And leave no trace, behind.

Yet, though so changing, and so brief,
     Our life's eventful page,
It has its charms, for every grief,
     Its joys, for every age.

In youth's, in manhood's, golden hours,
     Loves, friendships, strew the way
With April's earliest, sweetest flowers,
     And all the bloom of May;
And when old age, with wintry hand,
     Has frosted o'er, the head,
Virtue's fair fruits, survive the blast,
     When all beside, are fled;
And faith, with pure, unwavering eye,
     Can pierce the gathered gloom;
And smile upon the spoiler's rage,
     And live, beyond the tomb.

Be ours, then, virtue's deathless charm,
     And faith's untiring flight;
Then shall we rise, from death's dark sleep,
     To worlds of cloudless light.

Project Canterbury