Page:Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, 1846).djvu/43

Rh VANITAS VANITATUM, OMNIA VANITAS.

all we do, and hear, and see,

Is restless Toil and Vanity.

While yet the rolling earth abides,

Men come and go like Ocean tides;

And ere one generation dies,

Another in its place shall rise;

That, sinking soon into the grave,

Others succeed, like wave on wave;

And as they rise, they pass away.

The sun arises every day,

And, hastening onward to the West,

He nightly sinks, but not to rest:

Returning to the eastern skies,

Again to light us, he must rise.

And still the restless wind comes forth,

Now blowing keenly from the North;

Now from the South, the East, the West,

For ever changing, ne'er at rest.

The fountains, gushing from the hills,

Supply the ever-running rills;

The thirsty rivers drink their store,

And bear it rolling to the shore,