Mark Lemon Quote

Oh would I were a boy again,
When life seemed formed of sunny years,
And all the heart then knew of pain
Was wept away in transient tears!
When every tale Hope whispered then,
My fancy deemed was only truth.
Oh, would that I could know again,
The happy visions of my youth.

Oh would I were a Boy again, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).