Our youth was happy: why repine
That, like the Year’s, Life’s days decline?
‘Tis well to mingle with the mould
When we ourselves alike are cold,
And when the only tears we shed
Are of the dying on the dead.
“If on the tally-board of wasted days
They daily write me for proud idleness,
Let high Hell summons me, and I confess,
No overt act the preferred charge allays.”