Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/Youth

Youth.

Blest hour of childhood! then, and then alone,Dance we the revels close round Pleasure's throne,Quaff the bright nectar from her fountain-springs,And laugh beneath the rainbow of her wings.Oh! time of Promise, Hope, and Innocence,Of Trust, and Love, and happy Ignorance!Whose every dream is Heaven, in whose fair joyExperience yet has thrown no black alloy;Whose Pain, when fiercest, lacks the venomed pangWhich to maturer ill doth oft belong.When, mute and cold, we weep departed bliss,And Hope expires on broken Happiness.