Why love life more, the less of it be left, <br />And what is left be little but the lees, <br />And Time's subsiding passions have bereft <br />One's taste for pleasure, and one's power to please? <br />Is it not better, like the waning year, <br />Without lament resignedly to fade, <br />Since by enduring ordinance all things here <br />Are in their season shattered and decayed? <br />If you have shared in April's freshet song, <br />And Summer can without reproach recall, <br />Yearn not Autumnal harvest to prolong, <br />Nor shrink from Winter that awaits us all; <br />But, lightened of the load of earthly ties, <br />Pursue with homeward step your journey to the skies.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-of-life-3/
