Poem - Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant (1893)

Prediction Poetry

While yet we May

By Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant

1893

Ancient, wrinkled dames and jealous -

   They whom joyless Age downcasts -

And the sere, gray-bearded fellows

   Who would fain re-live their pasts -

These, the ancients, grimly tell us:

   "Vows are vain, and no love lasts."

Fleeting years fulfil Fate's sentence,

   Eyes must dim, and hair turn gray,

Age bring wrinkles, p'rhaps repentance;

   Youth shall quickly hie away,

And that time when youth has went hence,

   We - and love - have had our day.

Let the world, and fuming, fretting,

   Busy worldlings pass us by,

Bent on piles of lucre getting -

   They shall lose it when they die;

Past and future, sweet! forgetting -

   Seize the present ere it fly.

Your bright eyes are soft and smiling,

   Pouting lips are moist and red,

And your whispers wondrous wiling -

   Surely they would quick the dead -

And these hours they're now beguiling,

   All too hasty will have fled.

Years may bring a dole of sorrow,

   Time enough to fast and pray,

From the present pleasures borrow,

   Let the distant future pay;

Leave the penance for the morrow,

   Sweetheart! love and laugh to-day.