It stalks amid life's dark and brightest ways
And takes its victims. All are 'neath its slavery.
With chilling frosts it nips life's brightest flowers,
And with pale faces and a gasp they go,
And vaguely trust to bloom 'neath other bowers,
Where death's grim hand will never blast them so.
All hearts beat to music and measure,
Like songs of the spheres as they roll,
And from dreamland's far mystical treasure