Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

At sixty-two life has begun;
At seventy-three begin once more;
Fly swifter as thou near'st the sun,
And brighter shine at eighty-four.
At ninety-five
Shouldst thou arrive,
Still wait on God, and work and thrive.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes.

For what is age but youth's full bloom,
A riper, more transcendent youth?
A weight of gold is never old.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when gray hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

--William Wordsworth.

Fill, brief or long, my granted years
Of life with love to thee and man;
Strike when thou wilt, the hour of rest,
But let my last days be my best.

--John Greenleaf Whittier.

An age so blest that, by its side,
Youth seems the waste instead.

--Robert Browning.

ON THE EVE OF DEPARTURE

At the midnight, in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you love so,
--Pity me?

O to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
--Being--who?

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday, in the bustle of man's work-time,
Greet the unseen with a cheer!
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,
"Strive and thrive!" cry, "Speed,--fight on, fare ever
There as here!"

--Robert Browning.

Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day's out and the labor done;
Then bring your gauges.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I WOULD LIVE LONGER

Phil. i. 23.

O I would live longer, I gladly would stay,
Though "storm after storm rises