On Finding a Fountain in a Secluded Part of a Forest

Three hundred years are scarcely gone
Since, to the New World's virgin shore,
Crowds of rude men were pressing on
To range its boundless regions o'er.
Some bore the sword in bloody hands,
And sacked its helpless towns for spoil;
Some searched for gold the rivers' sands,
Or trenched the mountains' stubborn soil.
And some with higher purpose sought
Through forests wild and wastes uncouth —
Sought with long toil, yet found it not —
The fountain of eternal youth.
They said in some green valley, where
The foot of man had never trod,
There gushed a fountain bright and fair,
Up from the ever-verdant sod.
They there who drank should never know
Age with its weakness, pain, and gloom;
And from its brink the old should go
With youth's light step and radiant bloom.
Is not this fount so pure and sweet
Whose stainless current ripples o'er
The fringe of blossoms at my feet
The same those pilgrims sought of yore?
How brightly leap mid glittering sands
The living waters from below;
Oh, let me dip these lean brown hands,
Drink deep, and bathe my wrinkled brow;
And feel through every shrunken vein
The warm red blood flow swift and free,
Feel waking in my heart again
Youth's brightest hopes, youth's wildest glee.
'T is vain, for still the life-blood plays
With sluggish course through all my frame;
The mirror of the pool betrays
My wrinkled visage still the same.
And the sad spirit questions still —
Must this warm frame, these limbs that yield
To each light motion of the will,
Lie with the dull clods of the field'?
Has nature no renewing power
To drive the frost of age away?
Has earth no fount, or herb, or flower,
Which man may taste and live for aye?
Alas! for that unchanging state
Of youth and strength in vain we yearn;
And only after death's dark gate
Is reached and passed, can youth return.