Ah, love at best is insecure,
And lives with doubt and vain regret;
And hope and faith, with faces set
Upon the past, are never sure;
And through their fever, grief, and fret
The heart may fail that should endure.
For in ourselves, however blend
The passions that make heaven and hell,
Is evil not accountable
For most the good we comprehend?
And through these two,—or ill, or well,—
Man must evolve his spiritual end.
It is with deeds that we must ask
Forgiveness: for, upon this earth,
Life walks alone from very birth
With death, hope tells us is a mask
For life beyond of vaster worth,
Where sin no more sets love a task.
EPILOGUE
Would I could sing of joy I only
Remember as without alloy:
Of life full-filled, that once was lonely:
Of love a treasure, not a toy:
Of grief, regret but makes the keener,
Of aspiration, failure mars—
These would I sing, and sit serener.
Than song among the stars.
Would I could sing of faith unbroken;
Of heart-kept vows, and not of tears:
Of promised faith and vows love-spoken,
That have been kept through many years:
Of truth, the false but leaves the truer;
Of trust, the doubt makes doubly sure—
These would I sing, the noble doer
Whose dauntless heart is pure.
I would not sing of time made hateful;
Of hope that only clings to hate:
Of charity, that grows ungrateful;
And pride that will not stand and wait.—
Of humbleness, care hath imparted;
Of resignation, born of ills,
These would I sing, and stand high-hearted
As hope upon the hills.
Once on a throne of gold and scarlet
I touched a harp and felt it break;
I dreamed I was a king—a varlet,
A slave, who only slept to wake!—
Still on that harp my memory lingers,
While on a tomb I lean and read,
“Dust are our songs, and dust we singers,
And dust are all who heed.”