For I said, Surely, O Life, thy name is care and weariness,
Thy soil is parched, thy winds are fierce, and the suns above thee hardening.
A withered elder lay upon his bed, a desolate man and feeble:
His thoughts were of the past, the early past, the bygone days of youth:
Bitterly repented he the years stolen by the god of this world:
Remembering the maiden of his love, and the heart-stricken wife of his selfishness.
For the sunshiny morning of life came again to him a vivid truth,
But the years of toil as a long dim dream, a cloudy blighted noon:
He saw the nutting schoolboy, but forgat the speculative merchant;
The callous calculating husband was shamed by the generous lover: