Charles Frederick White

USA

Jollity

Ah! You're quite a jolly girl I see.
Where are you from?
You are just the kind I'd have you be;
You're full of fun:
Always telling jokes, with pretty smiles
Upon your face.
Thus you pass away the tiresome whiles
With ease and grace.
Ha! Ha! Ha! You say you're always gay,
Content and free?
Well, I know you've been quite so to-day;
So full of glee.
It is better, I suppose, to bear
Life as it comes.
Let it go as best it may, and care
Not when 'tis done.
Life is not of such worth that it ought
To be the cause
Of a constant worry, making naught
One's pleasant joys.
Of this short existence we know but
Present and past:
Future lifts her veil not, lingers not,
But glides so fast
That no man has ever felt her wrath,
Nor heard her speak:
So we're blindly stumbling 'long her path
Each day and week.
Thus we go through life at her behest,
And we should be
Happy, with a hope some day to rest
On Future's knee.
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