THE world is bright before thee, <br />Its summer flowers are thine, <br />Its calm blue sky is o'er thee, <br />Thy bosom Pleasure's shrine; <br />And thine the sunbeam given <br />To Nature's morning hour, <br />Pure, warm, as when from heaven <br />It burst on Eden's bower. <br />There is a song of sorrow, <br />The death-dirge of the gay, <br />That tells, ere dawn of morrow, <br />These charms may melt away, <br />That sun's bright beam be shaded, <br />That sky be blue no more, <br />The summer flowers be faded, <br />And youth's warm promise o'er. <br />Believe it not—though lonely <br />Thy evening home may be; <br />Though Beauty's bark can only <br />Float on a summer sea; <br />Though Time thy bloom is stealing, <br />There's still beyond his art <br />The wild-flower wreath of feeling, <br />The sunbeam of the heart.<br /><br />Fitz-Greene Halleck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-world-108/
