Not Understood and Other Poems/Years are Stealing

by Thomas Bracken

 

YEARS ARE STEALING.

 

YEARS are stealing, years are stealing,
  Youth’s bright star is on the wane;
Time, the mocker, is unveiling
  Hope, with all her trappings vain—
Aerial towers, sylvan bowers,
  Coral cave and golden plain;
Blighted, faded are the flowers,
  The scythe is mowing down the grain.

Years are stealing, years are stealing,
  We see not as we’ve seen before;
Colder grows each finer feeling,
  Warm emotions start no more—
Impulsive fire, proud desire,
  Impetuous as ocean’s roar.
The sable ship is drifting higher,
  Yonder lies the mystic shore.

Years are stealing, years are stealing,
  You and I have gone astray,
Since within the Old Home kneeling
  We were fondly taught to pray:
Pure words spoken, heartfelt token
  Of our homage to His sway,
Graves were made and ties were broken
  In the Old Land far away.

Years are stealing, years are stealing,
  Where is fortune, where is fame?
Where is friendship, soothing, healing?
  Where is love, ecstatic flame?
Friendship’s flying, love is dying,
  In the summer time they came;
Winter through the trees is sighing,
  Love and friendship, scorn and shame.

Years are stealing, years are stealing.
  See life’s tinsel chariot glide;
Grasping avarice is wheeling
  Vanity and vulgar pride;
False and shallow, time will swallow
  Rags and riches in his tide:
Millions went and we must follow—
  Prince or pauper may not ’bide.

Years are stealing, years are stealing,
  Yonder mist is but a tear
The brilliant eye of day concealing,
Morn is there, and night is here.
In the morning, streaks adorning
  Heaven’s grand refulgent sphere;
Clouds at mid-day—solemn warning—
  Darker shades at night appear.

 

 

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