Why do we grieve when fancied joys
Elude our grasp and fly ?
If ever, we should mourn when flits
Some dread reality.

Should Hope's delusions mar our bliss,
'Tis folly to bewail
The wreck of Fancy's brightest dreams,
When what we have is frail.

What though to-day a thousand gems
In flattering prospect rise?
What though to-morrow every one
Elude our ravished eyes ?

Should Reason prompt us to repine
For what was ne'er our own ?
Or rather, will it not reprove
Our grief for bliss unknown ?

What can Hope's sunny visions yield,
Her fairest beamings lend,
To vie with joys that round our homes
In sweet assemblage blend ?

Is not the spell that Woman casts
More bland to heart and eye
Than all the promises of Hope,
Or Fancy's imagery?

Our little ones,—do they not win
Our bosoms' warmest zeal ?
What sweeter than the pledge of love
Can dreams of bliss reveal ?

Our friends,—do not their smiles enhance
The joys that we possess ?
Do not their greetings sweeten life,
And make its sorrows less ?

Yet these endeared realities
May leave us in a day;
Far wiser, then, to have and love,
And mourn when they decay.