There comes a day when youth
Is put away, when truth
Becomes some latches and a lid,
When bright and eager eyes are softly hid
Awhile a lock and key away from pain.
Those years misunderstood
When everyone seemed good
And love worthy, they might have died
From all demanded from exacting pride,
Had not we put them up, airtight, away
From yellowing of slow and sure decay.
We look with old surprise;
We call them happy lies
Of innocence survival wants no more.
But how an opened trunk is sore
With distance where a fastened hasp
Made obsolete our freshest grasp.