Give me music, give me rapture, Youth that's fled can none recapture; Not with thought Wisdom's bought. Out on pride and scorn and sadness! Give me laughter, give me gladness.
Sweetest Earth, I love and love thee, Seas about thee, skies above thee, Sun and storms, Hues and forms Of the clouds with floating shadows On thy mountains and thy meadows.
Earth, there's none that can enslave thee, Not thy lords it is that have thee; Not for gold Art thou sold, But thy lovers at their pleasure Take thy beauty and thy treasure.
While sweet fancies meet me singing, While the April blood is springing In my breast, While a jest And my youth thou yet must leave me, Fortune, 'tis not thou canst grieve me.
When at length the grasses cover Me, the world's unwearied lover, If regret Haunt me yet,
It shall be for joys untasted, Nature lent and folly wasted.
Youth and jests and summer weather, Goods that kings and clowns together Waste or use As they choose, These, the best, we miss pursuing Sullen shades that mock our wooing.
Feigning Age will not delay it-- When the reckoning comes we'll pay it, Own our mirth Has been worth All the forfeit light or heavy Wintry Time and Fortune levy.
Feigning grief will not escape it, What though ne'er so well you ape it-- Age and care All must share, All alike must pay hereafter, Some for sighs and some for laughter.
Know, ye sons of Melancholy, To be young and wise is folly. 'Tis the weak Fear to wreak On this clay of life their fancies, Shaping battles, shaping dances.
While ye scorn our names unspoken, Roses dead and garlands broken, O ye wise, We arise, Out of failures, dreams, disasters, We arise to be your masters.
O dreamy, gloomy, friendly Trees, I came along your narrow track To bring my gifts unto your knees And gifts did you give back; For when I brought this heart that burns-- These thoughts that bitterly repine-- And laid them here among the ferns And the hum of boughs divine, Ye, vastest breathers of the air, Shook down with slow and mighty poise Your coolness on the human care, Your wonder on its toys, Your greenness on the heart's despair, Your darkness on its noise.
O idleness, too fond of me, Begone, I know and hate thee! Nothing canst thou of pleasure see In one that so doth rate thee;