Oh Think Not My Spirits Are Always as Light - The Moorings

OH!

think not my spirits are always as light

And as free from a pang as they seem to you now

Nor expect that the heart-beaming smile of to-night

Will return with to-morrow to brighten my brow

No: — life is a waste of wearisome hours

Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;

And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers

Is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns

But send round the bowl, and be happy awhile —

May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here

Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile

And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear

The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows

If it were not with friendship and love intertwined;

And I care not how soon I may sink to repose

When these blessing shall cease to be dear to my mind

But they who have loved the fondest, the purest

Too often have wept o’er the dream they believed;

And the heart that has slumber’d in friendship securest

Is happy indeed if 'twas never deceived

But send round the bowl;

while a relic of truth

Is in man or in woman, this prayer shall be mine, —

That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth

And the moonlight of friendship console our decline