Each has its haunting memory
Of things which never more may be."

II.

Thus spake an aged man to one
Who manhood's race had just begun.
His form of manhood's noblest length
Was strung with manhood's stoutest strength,
And burned within his eagle eye
The blaze of tameless energy--
Not tameless but untamed--for life
Soon breaks the spirit with its strife
And they who in their souls have nursed
The brightest visions, are the first
To learn how Disappointment's blight
Strips life of its illusive light;
How dreams the heart has dearest held
Are ever first to be dispelled;
How hope, and power, and love, and fame,
Are each an idly sounding name,
A phantom, a deceit, a wile,
That woos and dazzles to beguile.
But time had not yet tutored him,
The youth of hardy heart and limb,
Who quickly drew his courser's bit;
For though too haughty to submit,
In strife for mastery with men,
Yet to a prayer, or a caress,
His soul became all gentleness,--