As We Go On / Maxwell Struthers Burt

As We Go On

As we go on, grow older, grow more wise,
Grow friendlier with every friendly thing,
The honourable trees, grave dusk, the swing
Of upland meadows upward to the skies,
And even the old new fraudulent surprise
Of that quaint smiling paradox the spring,
How greatly beauty once again can bring
In smaller ways tears to our tenderer eyes.

We do not wait on mountains or on seas,
For there s a little lake between the hills,
That rustles with the sedges and the bees;
And great adventure found in daffodils
Stirs April gardens, when the world again
Is quick with mice and moles, crickets and men.

~~
Maxwell Struthers Burt (1882-1954)
from Songs and Portraits, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Maxwell Struthers Burt biography