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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  Yesterday and To-morrow

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Yesterday and To-morrow

By John Boyle O’Reilly (1844–1890)

JOYS have three stages, Hoping, Having, and Had;

The hands of Hope are empty, and the heart of Having is sad:

For the joy we take, in the taking dies; and the joy we Had is its ghost.

Now which is the better—the joy unknown, or the joy we have clasped and lost?