CCLXXXI Sonnet
Sad is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing
In current unperceived, because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing— 5
But tares, self-sown, have over-topped the wheat;
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing—
And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still; 10
And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A newer good to cure an older ill;
And sweet are all things when we learn to prize them
Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them.
Aubrey De Vere.