REMINISCENCE AND YOUTH
(From the recollection of childhood)
Serene are things of the past which none can now again find:
Childhood, innocence, and all motherly tales of the night ;
What pale ecstasy, when thoughts foregone, again come to the mind!
Which are but things of the presence, yet sorrow to my sight.
Oftentimes had I thought that childhood would with every child stay
And be a guide to his eagering growth and his helpless age
For when a child I was, with me were friends sincere to our play
Alas, now, like blown wilted leaves by the breeze, they are no more.
And from our youth are but pearls of pleasure and coals of pain
To those whom in our hapless hearts, we betray and we trust;
A man would wish for his friend, a sordid boon and splendid bane,
A woman would in her loveliness mislead her desires and lust.
O' youth, wanton youth! Why dost thou in our youthfulness stray
From all that we have, all that we give and all that we lose?
Like the shadow of a passerby under the sun's ray,
Which in a stationary stance and strife doth away move.
Then how do we in this little world from ourselves depart
And cause to our own dearest thoughts some thoughts of agony?
I was told by my Sire that things which end would again start;
But what sorrow that now, it is the difference to me!
©Abdulwali
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