Keep out of the Past. It is haunted:
He who in its avenues gropes
Shall find there the ghost of a joy prized the most,
And a skeleton throng of dead hopes.
In place of its beautiful rivers,
Are pools that are stagnant with slime;
And these graves gleaming white in a phosphoric light,
Hide dreams that were slain in their prime.
Keep out of the Past. It is lonely,
And barren and bleak to the view;
Its fires have grown cold, and its stories are old---
Turn, turn to the Present---the New;
To-day leads you up to the hill-tops
That are kissed by the radiant sun,
To-day shows no tomb, life's hopes are in bloom,
And to-day holds a prize to be won.
Poetical works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Edinburgh : W. P. Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, 1917.
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