Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/199

174 They seem but just to have set the goblet down,

As for a moment, yet return no more.

The chair, the board, the couch of state are here,

And we, the intrusive step are fain to check,

As though we pressed upon their privacy.

Whose privacy? The dead? A riddle all!

Yea,—we ourselves are riddles.

While we cling

Still to our crumbling hold, so soon to fall

And be forgotten, in that yawning gulph

That whelms all past, all present, all to come,

Oh, grant us wisdom, Father of the Soul,

To win a changeless heritage with thee.