I love the joyous thoughtless heart,
The revels of the youthful mind,
'Ere sad experience points the dart,
Which wounds so surely all mankind.
It glads me when the buoyant soul,
Unconscious ranges, fancy free,
Draining the sweets of pleasure's bowl,
And thinking all as blest as he.
Ah! me, yet sad it is to know,
The many griefs the future brings,
That time must change that note to woe,
Which now its merry carrol sings.
This "summer of the mind," alas!
Must have its autumn—leafless, bare,
When all these pleasing phantoms pass,
And end in winter, age, and care!
Such, such is life, the moral tells—
The tempest, and its sunny smiles,
A warning voice the cheerful bells,
The knell of death, our youth beguiles!