Here you will find the Poem Ballade Of Truisms of poet William Ernest Henley
Gold or silver, every day, Dies to gray. There are knots in every skein. Hours of work and hours of play Fade away Into one immense Inane. Shadow and substance, chaff and grain, Are as vain As the foam or as the spray. Life goes crooning, faint and fain, One refrain: 'If it could be always May!' Though the earth be green and gay, Though, they say, Man the cup of heaven may drain; Though, his little world to sway, He display Hoard on hoard of pith and brain: Autumn brings a mist and rain That constrain Him and his to know decay, Where undimmed the lights that wane Would remain, If it could be always May. YEA, alas, must turn to NAY, Flesh to clay. Chance and Time are ever twain. Men may scoff, and men may pray, But they pay Every pleasure with a pain. Life may soar, and Fortune deign To explain Where her prizes hide and stay; But we lack the lusty train We should gain, If it could be always May. Envoy Time, the pedagogue, his cane Might retain, But his charges all would stray Truanting in every lane - Jack with Jane - If it could be always May.
