Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/410

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

400 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Alas, thou wilt not stay thy flight For Wise, or Fair, or Just !

Is day less dear to thee than night, Or thought than senseless dust ?

life's answer,

'Tis true, my child, I seem to fly. Yet cease thy tears to shed,

Nor falsely deem thy dear ones die Because thou seest them dead.

Through myriad paths my way I take, And, as my course I keep,

All things are doomed awhile to wake, Awhile to fall asleep.

I thread my way through running stream

I laugh in waving trees ; I sport in every sunny beam ;

I murmur in the breeze ;

I roam the earth, I ride the air,

I swim in ocean's wave. And ever in a form more fair

Come mounting from my grave.

All shapes of ocean, air, and earth.

Alternate must decay ; They perish to renew their birth, —

Thou sayest, " They fade away."

Yet, when from worn and languid hearts

The unwilling spirit flies. It is not I>ife with life that parts —

'Tis only Death that dies.

�� �