God guard thee long from scath and grief!

Not any wish of ours would mar

One richly glooming ivy-leaf,

One rosy daisy-star.

What! phantoms are we, spectre-thin,

Unfathered, out of nothing born?

Did Being in this world begin

With blaze of yestermorn?

Nay! sacred Life, a scarlet thread,

Through lost unnumbered lives has run;