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The River Of Life

By Thomas Campbell

Topics: classic

The more we live, more brief appear     Our life's succeeding stages;     A day to childhood seems a year,     And years like passing ages.     The gladsome current of our youth,     Ere passion yet disorders,     Steals lingering like a river smooth     Along its grassy borders.     But as the careworn cheek grows wan,     And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,     Ye stars, that measure life to man,     Why seem your courses quicker?     When joys have lost their bloom and breath,     And life itself is vapid,     Why, as we reach the Falls of Death     Feel we its tide more rapid?     It may be strange, yet who would change     Time's course to slower speeding,     When one by one our friends have gone,     And left our bosoms bleeding?     Heaven gives our years of fading strength     Indemnifying fleetness;     And those of youth, a seeming length,     Proportion'd to their sweetness.

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Author:Thomas Campbell

"The more we live, more brief appear..." by Thomas Campbell

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Thomas Campbell

About Thomas Campbell

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) was a Scottish poet best known for "The Pleasures of Hope" and war poems like "Hohenlinden" and "Ye Mariners of England." He helped found the University of London.

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