Fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendant world, in bigness as a star.

Milton: Paradise Lost.

Like pilgrims to th' appointed place we tend;
The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
E'en kings but play; and when their part is done,
Some other, worse or better, mount the throne.

Dryden: Palamon and Arcite.

O world! so few the years we live,
Would that the life which thou dost give

Were life indeed!

Alas! thy sorrows fall so fast,

Our happiest hour is when at last

The soul is freed.

Longfellow: Coplas de Manrique.

The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours:

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
Wordsworth: Miscellaneous Sonnets.

Youth, Boyhood, Girlhood; see Childhood.

Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a

boy?

Byron: Childe Harold.

Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening

prey.

As it was better, youth

Should strive, through acts uncouth,

Gray: Bard.

Toward making, than repose on aught found made:

So, better, age, exempt

From strife, should know, than tempt

Further.

Browning: Rabbi Ben Ezra.

Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation which I felt before the strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of

my life,

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming

years would yield.

Tennyson: Locksley Hall.

Longfellow: Hiawatha.

Youth is lovely, age is lonely.

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet!

Longfellow: Maidenhood.

How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams
With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!
Book of Beginnings, Story without End,
Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

All possibilities are in its hands,

No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands;
In its sublime audacity of faith,

"Be thou removed!" it to the mountain saith,
And, with ambitious feet, secure and proud,
Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud!

Longfellow: Morituri Salutamus.

Into the river of my life still flow

Streams of delight from youth's unfailing springs;
By every flower that blows and bird that sings
My heart is thrilled as in the long ago;
All aspirations youthful dreamers know-

For Man-for self; the joy that service brings;
Faith without folly-honors void of stings;
These quenchless orbs still keep my skies aglow.
James H. West: Across the Line.

Zeal, Enthusiasm; see Faith.

Zeal and duty are not slow;

But on Occasion's forelock watchful wait.

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest,

Till half mankind were like himself possess'd.

Cowper: Progress of Error.

INDEX OF AUTHORS