| |
| OH the wonder of our life, | |
| Pain and pleasure, rest and strife, | |
| Mystery of mysteries, | |
| Set twixt two eternities! | |
| |
| Lo, the moments come and go, | 5 |
| E’en as sparks, and vanish so; | |
| Flash from darkness into light, | |
| Quick as thought are quenched in night. | |
| |
| With an import grand and strange | |
| Are they fraught in ceaseless change | 10 |
| As they post away; each one | |
| Stands eternally alone. | |
| |
| The scene more fair than words can say, | |
| I gaze upon and go my way; | |
| I turn, another glance to claim— | 15 |
| Something is changed, ’t is not the same. | |
| |
| The purple flush on yonder fell, | |
| The tinkle of that cattle-bell, | |
| Came, and have never come before, | |
| Go, and are gone forevermore. | 20 |
| |
| Our life is held as with a vice, | |
| We cannot do the same thing twice; | |
| Once we may, but not again; | |
| Only memories remain. | |
| |
| What if memories vanish too, | 25 |
| And the past be lost to view; | |
| Is it all for nought that I | |
| Heard and saw and hurried by? | |
| |
| Where are childhood’s merry hours, | |
| Bright with sunshine, crossed with showers? | 30 |
| Are they dead, and can they never | |
| Come again to life forever? | |
| |
| No—’t is false, I surely trow; | |
| Though awhile they vanish now; | |
| Every passion, deed, and thought | 35 |
| Was not born to come to nought! | |
| |
| Will the past then come again, | |
| Rest and pleasure, strife and pain, | |
| All the heaven and all the hell? | |
| Ah, we know not: God can tell. | 40 |
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