AN OFF-REPEATED DESIRE.
By C. M. Willis
“I WISH I WERE A CHILD AGAIN.”
Ask not for time to roll backward again,
Back with its burden of heartache and pain;
Years that are passed, oh, I would not recall,
Draped with their somber funereal pall;
Bright hours of childhood, I would not reclaim,
Burdens of past years, I’d bear not again,
Nearer, ah nearer, to-day seems the goal,
Nearer the rest-day draws nigh to my soul. Were we placed back in the sweet childish train,
Back to its innocence, where were the gain?
All that at distance seemed charming and sweet,
Turning to treachery, fraud and deceit;
All of earth’s anguish, its torturing pain,
Lessons most bitter, to learn them again;
Plucking its roses to find but revealed
Cankering thorns, which their beauty concealed. Back through the vista of long darkened years,
Mournfully gazing through storm cloud and tears,
Naught greets the vision but sighing and pain,
Toil without recompense, loss without gain;
Wearied with climbing the mountain-side steep,
Wearied with sowing for others to reap,
Tired of the untrue, the hollow, the vain,
Oh! who would wish them to come back again. No! let the past with its weariness rest,
Its bitter experiences hid in its breast;
Its longings unsatisfied, failures we mourn,
Too bitter by far, to wish their return.
Nearer each year brings the hour of release,
Nearer to-day seems the haven of peace,
Nearer the time when we’ll bear our sheaves home,
Nearer the hour of the welcome, “Well done.”