FORTY years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play -
Then it may be there will often come o'er you
Glimpses of notes, like the catch of a song;
Visions of boyhood shall float them before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along.
Routs and discomfitures, rushes and rallies,
Bases attempted, and rescued, and won.
Strife without anger and art without malice -
How will it seem to you, forty years on?
Then, you will say, not a feverish minute
Strained the weak heart or the wavering knee,
Never the battle raged hottest but in it
Neither the last nor the faintest were we!
Oh! The great days, in the distance enchanted,
Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun,
How we rejoiced as we struggled and panted -
Hardly believable forty years on!
How we discours'd of them, one with another,
Auguring triumph, or balancing fate,
Loved the ally with the heart of a brother,
Hated the foe with a playing at hate!
Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God gives us bases to guard or beleaguer,
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun,
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty, and thirty, and forty years on!