Ah! not by the silver gray That creeps thro' the sunny hair, And not by the scenes that we pass on our way, And not by the furrows the fingers of care On forehead and face have made. Not so do we count our years; Not by the sun of the earth, but the shade Of our souls, and the fall of our tears. For the young are ofttimes old, Though their brows be bright and fair; While their blood beats warm, their hearts are cold -- O'er them the spring -- but winter is there. And the old are ofttimes young, When their hair is thin and white; And they sing in age, as in youth they sung, And they laugh, for their cross was light. But bead, by bead, I tell The rosary of my years; From a cross to a cross they lead; 'tis well, And they're blest with a blessing of tears. Better a day of strife Than a century of sleep; Give me instead of a long stream of life The tempests and tears of the deep. A thousand joys may foam On the billows of all the years; But never the foam brings the lone back home -- It reaches the haven through tears. Death Out of the shadows of sadness, Into the sunshine of gladness, Into the light of the blest; Out of a land very dreary, Out of a world very weary, Into the rapture of rest. Out of to-day's sin and sorrow, Into a blissful to-morrow, Into a day without gloom; Out of a land filled with sighing, Land of the dead and the dying, Into a land without tomb. Out of a life of commotion, Tempest-swept oft as the ocean, Dark with the wrecks drifting o'er; Into a land calm and quiet, Never a storm cometh nigh it, Never a wreck on its shore. Out of a land in whose bowers Perish and fade all the flowers: Out of the land of decay, Into the Eden where fairest Of flowerets, and sweetest and rarest, Never shall wither away. Out of the world of the wailing Thronged with the anguished and ailing; Out of the world of the sad, Into the world that rejoices -- World of bright visions and voices -- Into the world of the glad. Out of a life ever mournful, Out of a land very lornful, Where in bleak exile we roam, Into a joy-land above us, Where there's a Father to love us -- Into our home -- "Sweet Home". What Ails the World? "What ails the world?" the poet cried; "And why does death walk everywhere? And why do tears fall anywhere? And skies have clouds, and souls have care?" Thus the poet sang, and sighed. For he would fain have all things glad, All lives happy, all hearts bright; Not a day would end in night, Not a wrong would vex a right -- And so he sang -- and he was sad. Thro' his very grandest rhymes Moved a mournful monotone -- Like a shadow eastward thrown From a sunset -- like a moan Tangled in a joy-bell's chimes. "What ails the world?" he sang and asked -- And asked and sang -- but all in vain; No answer came to any strain, And no reply to his refrain -- The mystery moved 'round him masked.