Farewell, Youth
By John Herlihy

One fine day, I bid farewell to my youth;
Things happened to shed light on a truth.
They say that our lives are in our hands;
We have a responsibility all to withstand.
But I think otherwise and know for a fact,
That life’s progress contains more than tact.

Think about it for a minute, truth to tell;
There are stages of life we can never sell.
Finished, gone, puff, they simply disappear,
Disappear into life’s mist, never to reappear.
Fear not, since it is not a question of fear;
The stages of life die at the point of a spear.

A bud in infancy becomes the baby’s bloom;
A baby turns child coming from its cocoon.
A child becomes a teenager now gone wild;
A man loses his youth and no longer smiled.
It feels like the end of an era, never to return;
The sweet innocence of youth into ashes burn.

Sleeping with the light off when on my own,
Turning up suddenly lost in a vast unknown,
My first serious illness with no one else around,
My desires leading me forward, outward bound,
My first sorrow when there was no one to hold,
My first adventure when I must try to be bold.

Fleeting youth has blossomed happily in the sun,
Giving freely of its honey to bees flying on the run.
We then awaken and feel something pierce the heart,
An attack of a stingray setting free its poisonous dart.
Goodbye sweet youth and all the stories it could tell,
With life’s urge to move on, I now bid you farewell.