Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/410

 400 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

Alas, thou wilt not stay thy flight For Wise, or Fair, or Just !

Is day less dear to thee than night, Or thought than senseless dust ?

life's answer,

'Tis true, my child, I seem to fly. Yet cease thy tears to shed,

Nor falsely deem thy dear ones die Because thou seest them dead.

Through myriad paths my way I take, And, as my course I keep,

All things are doomed awhile to wake, Awhile to fall asleep.

I thread my way through running stream

I laugh in waving trees ; I sport in every sunny beam ;

I murmur in the breeze ;

I roam the earth, I ride the air,

I swim in ocean's wave. And ever in a form more fair

Come mounting from my grave.

All shapes of ocean, air, and earth.

Alternate must decay ; They perish to renew their birth, —

Thou sayest, " They fade away."

Yet, when from worn and languid hearts

The unwilling spirit flies. It is not I>ife with life that parts —

'Tis only Death that dies.

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