Poems of Pleasure — Keep Out of the Past

KEEP OUT OF THE PAST.

Keep out of the Past!

for its highways Are damp with malarial gloom;

Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear.

And everywhere molders a tomb.

Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures, Finds only a rose turned to dust;

And its storehouse of wonderful treasures Are covered and coated with rust.

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 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 hilltops 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.