PLAINT
Brief is Man’s travail here, and transitory
His wrath that soon is spent—
Brief his lament,
Lifted in vain against the harsh decrees
Of the high Destinies
That move not for the murmur of his woe:
Even as snow
On sunny meadows, as a lover’s story
Told in an April twilight long ago,
Brief is he even as these—
His little hour of tumult or of glory—
And to what end devised we may not guess,
Considering, as we go
Toward the same shadows, bearing the same spark,
His vanity and utter nothingness.
Yet in the mighty Dark
Dear is the spirit; grievously we know
Earth has one burden more, one soul the less.