Ere that I say farewell to youth, and take <br />The homely road that leads to life's decline, <br />Let me be sure again I shall not pine <br />To taste the bliss you bid me to forsake: <br />That Spring's returning raptures will not wake <br />Too late repentance for abjuring mine, <br />Nor the old sweets I pledge me to resign <br />Behind them leave the bitterness of ache. <br />Yet is there nothing of one's generous prime <br />To bear me kindred company to the end, <br />Some passionate longing, some belief sublime, <br />Some wrong to right, some failure to befriend? <br />Leave me but these, I care not where I wend, <br />But down life's slope go hand-in-hand with Time.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-farewell-to-youth/
