Read "How" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
How can I let my youth go by? / How can I let Time mark my brow, / And steal the light of a laughing eye, / And whiten the locks that are nut brown now. / And the tide that goes, / And ripples, and flows, / Like a beautiful river, on forever, / Over my head, through every vein, / And fills me, and thrills me, with joy like pain, / Old cruel Time, / With a touch of rime, / Will drug, and chill, and freeze, until / It likes a stream, / In its winter dream.
Ho! ho! old Time! you may chuckle and smile, / But Death may cheat you, and beat you yet; / What shall you say, if, after a while, / Ere the sun of my youth has set, / I go with him, to a closet dim, / And closing my eyes, in a long, long rest, / Lie white and cold, / And never grow old, / With my two hands clasped over my breast. / Always young, / With my song half sung -- / Lying under the graves' green mould; / And the world, for a day / Would miss me, and say, / "When will the rest of the tale be told? " / And then go on, / Gaily on. / Till its hopes were fears, and its young were old.