Questions And Answers

by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Where, O where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.

Where, O where are life's lilies and roses,
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile.

Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers, --
Married and dead by the score.

Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies,
Saturday's triumph and joy?
Gone like our friend ___ ___ Achilles,
Homer's ferocious old boy.

Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion,
Hopes like young eagles at play,
Vows of unheard of and endless devotion.
How ye have faded away!

Yet, though the ebbing of Time's mighty river
Leave our young blossoms to die,
Let him roll smooth in his current for ever,
Till the last pebble is dry.