Immortality
The shining certainties of youth
Lead straight towards ambitions’ goals;
Quick learning lights the ways to truth
And glories glow from ardent souls.
The solid strengths of middle-age,
Exerting skills where hopes aspire,
Enforce success or help assuage
Brief pangs of yet-unslaked desire.
The frailties of advanced decades
Exalt ripe brains above rude brawn;
Until senility pervades
Through second-childhood’s faded dawn.
Unlike worn bodies which, in time, decay,
Summa cum laude our true triumphs stay.
