Youth is the torch that lights up beauty’s forms,
The sail that wafts us where our hopes repose,
Now steals it towards the heart which now it storms,
And gradual towards its own ideal grows;
It sifts the sands, and clasps the golden grains;
It weaves a rainbow through the mists of life;
Sluggard desire that faints, even as it strains,
And wears fulfilment, as a tedious wife,
Feels but the touch of youth, and rapturous soars
To other heights, imagining brighter views;
Youth is a woodland slope, whose mossy pores
Are bursting with the life of violet hues;
Melodious changes of a harp’s reply
To its sweet theme of mutability.