EARLY THOUGHTS Oh gather the thoughts of your early years, Gather them as they flow, For all unmarked in those thoughts appears The path where you soon must go. Full many a dream will wither away, And Springtide hues are brief, But the lines are there of the autumn day, Like the skeleton in the leaf. The husbandman knowns not the worth of his seed Until the flower be sprung, And only in age can we rightly read The thoughts that we thought when young. -- William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838-1903)