And nothing that ever was born or evolved,
Nothing created by light or force,
But deep in its system there lies dissolved
A shining drop from the Great Love Source;
A shining drop that shall live for aye—
Though kingdoms may perish and stars decay.
KEEP OUT OF THE PAST.
KEEP out of the Past! for its highways
Are damp with malarial gloom;
Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear.
And everywhere molders a tomb.
Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures,
Finds only a rose turned to dust;
And its storehouse of wonderful treasures
Are covered and coated with rust.
Keep out of the Past. It is haunted:
He who in its avenues gropes,
Shall find there the ghost of a joy prized the most,
And a skeleton throng of dead hopes.
In place of its beautiful rivers,
Are pools that are stagnant with slime;
And these graves gleaming in a phosphoric light,
Hide dreams that were slain in their prime.
Keep out of the Past. It is lonely,
And barren and bleak to the view;
Its fires have grown cold, and its stories are old—
Turn, turn to the Present—the New:
To-day leads you up to the hilltops
That are kissed by the radiant sun,
To-day shows no tomb, life’s hopes are in bloom,
And to-day holds a prize to be won.
THE FAULT OF THE AGE.
THE fault of the age is a mad endeavor
To leap to heights that were made to climb:
By a burst of strength, of a thought most clever,
We plan to forestall and outwit Time.
We scorn to wait for the thing worth having;
We want high noon at the day’s dim dawn;
We find no pleasure in toiling and saving,
As our forefathers did in the old times gone.