Strive; yet I do not promise
The prize you dream of to-day
Will not fail when you think to grasp it,
And melt in your hand away;
But another and holier treasure,
You would now perchance disdain,
Will come when your toil is over,
And pay you for all your pain.
The hour you long for now,
Will not come with its radiance vanished,
And a shadow upon its brow,
Yet far through the misty future,
With a crown of starry light,
An hour of joy you know not,
Is winging her silent flight.
Pray; though the gift you ask for
May never comfort your fears,
May never repay your pleading,
Yet pray, and with hopeful tears:
An answer, not that you long for,
But diviner will come one day;
Your eyes are too dim to see it,
Yet strive, and wait, and pray.
Farewell Life! my senses swim,
And the world is growing dim:
Thronging shadows crowd the light,
Like the advent of the night-
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapour chill;
Strong the earthy odour grows-
I smell the mould above the rose!
Welcome Life! the Spirit strives!
Strength returns and hope revives:
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn,-
O'er the earth there comes a bloom;
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapour cold—
I smell the rose above the mould!
"medio de fonte leporum.
Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat." Lucretius. Lib. iv.
Well may you wonder at my flight
From those fair gardens, in whose bowers
Lingers whate'er of wise and bright,
Of Beauty's smile or Wisdom's light,
Is left to grace this world of ours.
Well may my comrades, as they roam,
On such sweet eves as this, inquire
Why I have left that happy home
Where all is found that all desire,
And Time hath wings that never tire;
Where bliss in all the countless shapes,
That Fancy's self to bliss hath given,
Comes clustering round like roadside grapes
That woo the traveller's lip at even.
Though thro' my life's short sunny dream,
I've floated without pain or care,
Like a light leaf down pleasure's stream,
Caught in each sparkling eddy there;
Though never mirth awaked a strain
That my heart echoed not again;
Yet have I felt when even most gay,
Sad thoughts, I knew not whence or why-
Suddenly o'er my spirit fly,
Like clouds that ere we've time to say
"How bright the sky is," shade the sky.
Sometimes so vague, so undefin'd,
Were these strange darkenings of my mind-
While nought but joy around me beam'd,-
So causelessly they've come and flown,
That not of life or earth they seem'd,
But shadows from some world unknown.
More oft, however, 'twas the thought
How soon that scene, with all its play
Of life and gladness must decay-
Those lips I prest, the hands I caught—
Myself-the crowd that mirth had brought
Around me-swept like weeds away!
This thought it was that came to shed
O'er rapture's hour its worst alloys;
And, close as shade with sunshine, wed
Its sadness with my happiest joys.
Oh, were it not for this sad voice,
Stealing amid our mirth to say,
That all in which we most rejoice,
Ere night may be the earthworm's prey ;
But for this bitter-only this—
Full as the world is brimmed with bliss,
And capable as feels my soul
Of draining to its depth the whole,
I should turn earth to heaven, and be,
If bliss made gods, a deity!
It falls before, it follows behind,
Darkest still when the day is bright;
No light without the shadow we find,
And never shadow without the light.
From our shadow we cannot flee
It walks when we walk, it runs when we run;
But it tells which way to look for the sun;
We may turn our backs on it any day.
Ever mingle the light and shade
That makes this human world so dear; Sorrow of joy is ever made,
And what were a hope without a fear?
A morning shadow o'er youth is cast,
Warning from pleasure's dazzling snare;
A shadow lengthening across the past,
Fixes our fondest memories there.
One shadow there is, so dark, so drear,
So broad, we see not the brightness round it;
Yet 'tis but the dark side of the sphere
Moving into the light unbounded.
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