UNSATISFIED

Oh, “dear dead days” that dearer grow, I look behind, and thro’ my tears, Across a wide, wide gulf of years, I see you now and now I know. When I was yours, you mine, alas! I did not know your real worth, And, longing for the future’s birth, Found time so slow, so slow to pass. The joys I hoped for never came, While those I held slipped from my clasp, As I stretched yearning hands to grasp Shadows—’tis evermore the same! We strain dim eyes up to the stars, Nor heed the blossoms at our feet; Like puny birds we beat and beat Our lives out ’gainst Fate’s prison bars.