Valediction

Here where our hearts respond to lovers’ cries With ready swiftness, where our laughters leap From our lips, shall we not resolutely keep This boyhood, looking on stars with boyish eyes? Rapture, we know, grows old and subtly dies Within us,—this much we know, and wisely creep Away from age lest we disturb his sleep Where Youth intolerably weeping lies. Is this our portion? Shall we not go far Beyond this presence, bearing our flags unfurled Exultantly beyond some alien hill Of dreams?—rise up, and up, and up, until This place we knew must seem a sorry world And the old earth a too familiar star? HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.