TIME, DEATH, AND ETERNITY.
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When o'er thee, O Earth, my last great day shall dawn,Mortality's veil from the soul be withdrawn,Then thou shalt be changed, and my reign shall be o'er:Eternity's day shall be thine evermore.
To wisdom of Time thou hast listened, O Earth!I boast not to thee so illustrious birth;For sad was the day, full of woe was the hour,Thy children, O Earth! knew first Death's fatal power.The hopes of the spirit how often I blight,And shroud all its sunlight in sorrow's dark night! All nations, O Earth! my dark presence have known,Before me vain glory hath faded and flown:Through palace of royalty silent I glide,And soon from the throne of his glory and prideThe monarch descends, and 'mid wailing and woe,All scepterless, crownless, by Death is laid low.I come to the spot where so weary and wornThe beggar is waiting, dejected, forlorn;Till night shall have passed, and the morning againShall call him to wander in hunger and pain,—I come, and his vigils no more he doth keep,His woes all forgotten in Death's dreamless sleep.
