Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art,
But some of their days by the flow of their tears,
And their life by the moans of their heart.
The dials of earth may show
The length, not the depth of years--
Few or many may come, few or many may go;
But our time is best measured by tears.
Ah! not by the silver gray
That creeps through the sunny hair,
And not by the scenes we pass on our way--
And not by the furrows the finger of Care
In forehead and face has made;
Not so do we count our years;
Not by the sun of the earth--but by the shade
Of our souls--and the fall of our tears.
For the young are ofttimes old,
Though their brow be bright and fair,
While their blood beats warm, their hearts lie cold--
O'er them the Springtime--but Winter is there,
And the old are ofttimes young,
When their hair is thin and white;
And they sing in age as in youth they sung,
And they laugh, for their cross was light.
But bead by bead I tell
The rosary of my years,
From a cross, a crown they lead--'tis well!
And they are blessed with a blessing of tears.
Better a day of strife,
Than a century of sleep;
Give me instead of a long stream of life
The tempest and tears of the deep.
A thousand joys may foam
On the billows of all the years;
But never the foam brings the brave bark home--
It reaches the haven through tears.
--_Father Ryan._