MORTALITY BY WILLIAM KNOX Oн, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved; The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne; The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn; The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven; So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, That withers away to let others succeed; For we are the same our fathers have been; sun, And run the same course our fathers have run. The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging our fathers would cling; But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing. They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. They died, ay! they died: and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. |