Despair has bound thee in a close embrace;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!
Death grows beside existence, and with time
Is comrade of its changes; cycles roll
Their heavy circles through the human soul,
And pour their dirges into mournful rhyme;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!
He gropes in shadows for a happy beam
That shall delight his bosom; into mist
Dissolves the substance that ambition kissed,