dots-menu
×

Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  To-morrow

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: I. Time

To-morrow

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

From “Irene”

TO-MORROW’S action! can that hoary wisdom,

Borne down with years, still doat upon to-morrow!

The fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,

The coward and the fool, condemned to lose

An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,

To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,

Till interposing death destroys the prospect.

Strange that this general fraud from day to day

Should fill the world with wretches, undetected!

The soldier, laboring through a winter’s march,

Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;

Still to the lover’s long-expecting arms

To-morrow brings the visionary bride.

But thou, too old to bear another cheat,

Learn that the present hour alone is man’s.