Thus it musingly wasteth its strength, in dreams
Of bliss, that can never prove true:
And ever it revels amid what seems,
A paradise smiling with Hope's warm beams,
And flowers all spangled with dew.
But, even as flowers are broken and fade,
And yield up their perfumes—their souls,—
So vanish the colors of which dreams are made,—
So perish the structures on which Hope is staid,
And the treasures to which the heart holds.
In vain does it follow the wandering forms
That promise, yet always recede:—
Too briefly the sunshine is darken'd by storms:
Hope minstrels it onward, yet never informs
Of the dangers unseen, that impede.
The Heart trusts the outward: "Of man 'tis the whole."
Thus Confidence clings to decay!
It feels the sweet homage that riches control,—
And laughs in contempt at the wealth of the soul:
And behold! now, friends wait for their prey.
It trusteth in glory, and beauty, and youth,—
In love-vows that ne'er are to die:
But soon the Death-king, in whose heart is no ruth,
Enfolds it,—and mounting aloft, of Truth
Thus sings, as turns glassy the eye.
"There's nothing so lovely and bright below,
As the shapes of the purified mind!
Nought surer to which the weak heart can grow,
On which it can rest, as it onward doth go,
Than that Truth which its own tendrils bind.
"Yes! Truth opes within a pure sun-tide of bliss,
And shows in its ever calm flood,
A transcript of regions, where no darkness is,
Where Hope its conceptions may realize,
And Confidence sleep in 'The Good.'"
(signature) Chas. L. Reason.