O youth, with your eager right hand up-flung
Above Time's level line,
With the wine of life in your rippling limbs
And hope-lit eyes that shine;
Gaze ever before you ... lest life decoy you
Into dreading the future's slow ways.
A measure of joy
A measure of strife,
In the passing of time,
Makes the rhythm of life ...
Repeating through endless days.

And age, from your hard-won security,
Look not backward to youth,-
Lest the bounding pulse of its eager ways
And the burning call of forgotten days
Mar your serenity.
Over and over ... and over again
The sequence of life goes on,
And O the joy of the throbbing urge
When the bright face of youth turns to dawn!
But the calm hands of age
Are ever the gauge
Of what the youth has won.