Anticipation is sweeter than realisation.
It may be, yet I have not found it so.
In those first golden dreams of future fame
I did not find such happiness as came
When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know
My words have recognition, and will go
Straight to some listening heart, my early aim,
To win the idle glory of a name,
Pales like a candle in the noondays glow.
So with the deeper joys of which I dreamed:
Life yields more rapture than did childhoods fancies,
And each year brings more pleasure than I waited.
Friendship proves truer than of old it seemed,
And, all beyond youths passion-hued romances,
Love is more perfect than anticipated.
