Our years Glide silently away. No tears, No loving orisons repair The wrinkled cheek, the whitening hair That drop forgotten to the tomb.
Alas! the fleeting years, how they roll on!
Fifty years," I hackneyed, "is a long time." "Not when you're looking back at them," she said. "You wonder how they vanished so quickly.
Gone! gone forever!-like a rushing wave Another year has burst upon the shore Of earthly being-and its last low tones, Wandering in broken accents in the air, Are dying to an echo.
But when to-morrow comes, yesterday's morrow will have been already spent: and lo! a fresh morrow will be for ever making away with our years, each just beyond our grasp.
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snow-drop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
Winged time glides on insensibly, and deceive us; and there is nothing more fleeting than years.
I thank the Almighty for the most wonderful 18 years. Far, far, too short a time.
