Youth Has Not All - A Sonnet

Youth has not all; the rip’ning year reveals

     A resting place along the still highway

     Where flowers bloom tomorrow and today;

Where ‘neath the shade, the God of slumber steals,

In answer to the Pilgrim’s mute appeals.

     No stress, no strain is ever sanctioned here

     No sound save music to the listening ear,

No sight save what the golden west reveals.

Youth is aflame with hope, and with that hope

     Must be the endless strain that youthhood knows,

     The crowning pleasures interspersed with woes,

The strife with which the Pilgrims cannot cope.

     ‘Tis well; let youth fight on, to rise and fall,

     Maturity has won the goal; Youth has not all.

Oct. 19, ‘09