Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790–1867)

THE WORLD is bright before thee,

Its summer flowers are thine,

Its calm blue sky is o’er thee,

Thy bosom Pleasure’s shrine;

And thine the sunbeam given

To Nature’s morning hour,

Pure, warm, as when from heaven

It burst on Eden’s bower.

There is a song of sorrow,

The death-dirge of the gay,

That tells, ere dawn of morrow,

These charms may melt away,

That sun’s bright beam be shaded,

That sky be blue no more,

The summer flowers be faded,

And youth’s warm promise o’er.

Believe it not—though lonely

Thy evening home may be;

Though Beauty’s bark can only

Float on a summer sea;

Though Time thy bloom is stealing.

There ’s still beyond his art

The wild-flower wreath of feeling,

The sunbeam of the heart.