Part 16 (1/2)

LIFE'S TRILOGY

_Youth_ dreams of all the years shall hold,-- Of poems writ, of battles won, Of statues made, of love, of gold, And honors, added one by one; How sweet the song of Hope, if sung, When life is young!

_Man's_ dreams are stern and few indeed; His youthful aims he finds despised, For in a world of strife and greed Ideals must be sacrificed; Alas, there is so little time In manhood's prime!

_Age_ dreams of what the years have brought,-- The blots upon life's tear-dimmed scroll, The brave attempts that came to naught, The unsolved problems of the soul; How sadly is the tale retold, When life is old!

_Youth, Manhood, Age,_--the fatal Three!

Illusion, Struggle, and Regret!

So hath it been, so shall it be, And to what end? We know not yet; Still sweeps the mighty life-flood on, Now here, now gone!

Seed, bud, florescence, and decay In nature, races, nations, men;-- Nay, Earth itself shall fail one day To feed its freezing brood! What then?

Successive cycles, vast and small,-- Can these be all?

Do all these swirls of suns and souls, Of spirit keen and senseless stone, Speed on to no appointed goals, Like sand along the desert blown,-- Forever born from out the void, To be destroyed?--

Nay, Reason, shocked at anarchy, Demands an author and an aim, Seeks ever for the master-key To solve the mystery,--Whence came This starlit sea of Evermore, Without a sh.o.r.e?

And whence comes Life,--that occult Force, So rich in its prolific range, So frail and swift to run its course, Yet deathless in protean change?

Must we not hope that Death will clear The darkness here?

Such hopes appear of little worth When, peering through our planet's bars, We picture this, our tiny Earth, Amid that wilderness of stars!

Yet in those sun-strewn depths of s.p.a.ce It hath its place.

Its rhythmic motion, tuned to time, Its awful rush, yet sure return, Make even our dim orb sublime, And we at last the truth discern,-- With G.o.d is neither small nor great, Nor soon, nor late.

Unconscious actors,--it may be That here we painfully rehea.r.s.e, In parts, whose plots we do not see, Some drama of the universe,-- Advanced, as n.o.bler grow our souls, To loftier roles.

MYSTERIES

Bound to the earth in its headlong flight, Whence and whither we do not know, Cleaving the awful void of night With frost above and fire below, What is the goal toward which we fly?

What does it mean to live and die?

Under our feet a trembling sh.e.l.l, Pierced by a hundred lurid rents!

Lower still a molten h.e.l.l, Seen through its lava-belching vents!

And men, within its blighting breath, Are charred, like leaves, to a shrivelled death.

Thin is the rind on which we tread; It shakes, and a thousand lives are lost; The sea engulfs unnumbered dead; Each second scores of souls are tossed Into the stream that sweeps them on ...

Whither? Who knows where they are gone?

Over the earth-crust millions crawl, Fight for a little gold and grain, Then in a few years leave it all, Nevermore to be seen again!

When will the tragic tale be told?

And what of Man when the earth grows cold?