In mid whirl of the dance of Time ye start,
Start at the cold touch of Eternity,
And cast your cloaks about you, and depart:
The minstrels pause not in their minstrelsy.
* * * * *
The beasts in field are glad, and have not wit
To know why leapt their hearts when springtime shone.
Man looks at his own bliss, considers it,
Weighs it with curious fingers; and 'tis gone.
* * * * *
Momentous to himself as I to me
Hath each man been that ever woman bore;
Once, in a lightning-flash of sympathy,
I felt this truth, an instant, and no more.
* * * * *
The gods man makes he breaks; proclaims them each
Immortal, and himself outlives them all:
But whom he set not up he cannot reach
To shake His cloud-dark sun-bright pedestal.
* * * * *
The children romp within the graveyard's pale;
The lark sings o'er a madhouse, or a gaol;—
Such nice antitheses of perfect poise
Chance in her curious rhetoric employs.
* * * * *