I sit and smile as I fondly recall
All my hopes and dreams and plans and fears
From the time when I was very small
In those golden days of yesteryear

As days and months passed, as only they can
The world around me changed, and so did I
A child no longer, but not quite a man
And away my boyhood days did fly

Spring yielded to summer before long
And so continued changes within me
A young man now, standing tall and strong
Though still a youth, with so much yet to see

In those warm long days, so much I learned
Learned of love, of women, and of life
To see the truth of life was all I yearned
I found myself a family, home, and wife

The years flew past like clouds across the sky
Swiftly they went, too fast to really see
The young man that I was has waved goodbye
Leaving an older, wiser, stronger me

Those days in the autumn of my life
I set aside the passions of my youth
My own children grew and brought me strife
Their eyes closed to my teachings of the truth

They refused to hear as I would tell
All the lessons I learned from the world
On their own they stood, but often fell
And in their faces, their folly was hurled

Now I am old, in the winter of my life
My children at last stand upon their own
I lost my love, my world, my wife
And oftentimes I sit near her gravestone

And think back to the spring of my youth
How I lost my hopes and dreams and fears
How I found my own side of the truth
In my golden days of yesteryear