Gold or silver, every day, <br />Dies to gray. <br />There are knots in every skein. <br />Hours of work and hours of play <br />Fade away <br />Into one immense Inane. <br />Shadow and substance, chaff and grain, <br />Are as vain <br />As the foam or as the spray. <br />Life goes crooning, faint and fain, <br />One refrain: <br />'If it could be always May!' <br /> <br />Though the earth be green and gay, <br />Though, they say, <br />Man the cup of heaven may drain; <br />Though, his little world to sway, <br />He display <br />Hoard on hoard of pith and brain: <br />Autumn brings a mist and rain <br />That constrain <br /> <br />Him and his to know decay, <br />Where undimmed the lights that wane <br />Would remain, <br />If it could be always May. <br /> <br />YEA, alas, must turn to NAY, <br />Flesh to clay. <br />Chance and Time are ever twain. <br />Men may scoff, and men may pray, <br />But they pay <br />Every pleasure with a pain. <br />Life may soar, and Fortune deign <br />To explain <br />Where her prizes hide and stay; <br />But we lack the lusty train <br />We should gain, <br />If it could be always May. <br /> <br />Envoy <br /> <br />Time, the pedagogue, his cane <br />Might retain, <br />But his charges all would stray <br />Truanting in every lane - <br />Jack with Jane - <br />If it could be always May.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-truisms/
