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Songs of Far Vistas
Life, Death and Immortality
Let me but live this life as best I may;
Each coming year with joyous sunlit day;
If with a song I may impart some cheer
To saddened hearts this happy bright new year!
Each coming year with joyous sunlit day;
If with a song I may impart some cheer
To saddened hearts this happy bright new year!
Let me now live this life as best I may;
For none return to tell us of the way.
Intent we listen for the coming call,
From windings of the path "beyond the wall."
For none return to tell us of the way.
Intent we listen for the coming call,
From windings of the path "beyond the wall."
January 1, 1919
Death
(Suggested by a Sermon of Dr. George Burman Foster of Chicago University)
Think not that Death malignly waits,
A weapon of the hostile Fates,
To strike the sinner down;
'Tis but a link in Nature's plan,
To join succeeding growths of man,
And life complete to crown.
A weapon of the hostile Fates,
To strike the sinner down;
'Tis but a link in Nature's plan,
To join succeeding growths of man,
And life complete to crown.
All finite things unfailing tend
From a beginning to an end;
For what is Time but Change?
What goal or growth could life possess,
If stretched out into emptiness,
With bleak unbounded range?
From a beginning to an end;
For what is Time but Change?
What goal or growth could life possess,
If stretched out into emptiness,
With bleak unbounded range?
What bard with grace could ever sing
The cloying charm of endless spring,
Or praise eternal day?
Since Man is tuned to Time alone,
The wise in Death a friend must own,
And bow to Nature's way!
The cloying charm of endless spring,
Or praise eternal day?
Since Man is tuned to Time alone,
The wise in Death a friend must own,
And bow to Nature's way!
1918
Immortality
I love to wander through the ancient aisles
Of venerable groves, where in the hush
And twilight of primeval peace, I feel
The calm beatitude of Nature's reign.
Of venerable groves, where in the hush
And twilight of primeval peace, I feel
The calm beatitude of Nature's reign.
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