LIFE.
What is life?—’Tis a delicate shell
Thrown up by Eternity’s flow
On Time’s bank of quicksand to dwel.
And a moment its loveliness show.
Gone back to the elements grand
Is the billow that cast it ashore:
See! another is washing the strand,
And the beautiful shell is no more!
—D. A.
What is life?—’Tis the billow of bells
That the sea of eternity bears;
And in rapturous music it swells
As it kisses the sands of the years.
But the ripples are breaking in foam,—
And the billow has ceased to be!
List! the billow, gone back to its home,
Is tolling down deep in the sea!