"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER." I. FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine, My goblets blush'd from every vine, I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes, II. I strive to number o'er what days Remembrance can discover, Which all that life or earth displays There rose no day, there roll'd no hour Of pleasure unembittered; And not a trapping deck'd my power That gall'd not while it glittered. III. The serpent of the field, by art And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart, Oh! who hath power of charming? It will not list to wisdom's lore, WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY. I. WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? II. Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth, or skies display'd, Shall it survey, shall it recal: Each fainter trace that memory holds In one broad glance the soul beholds, III. Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Fix'd in its own eternity. IV. Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An shall fleet like earthly year; age Its years as moments shall endure. |