Bear gently, suffer like a child, Nor be ashamed of tears; Kiss the sweet cross, and in thy heart Thy cross is quite enough for thee, For there is hid in it the weight Death will have rainbows round it, seen The Paradox of Time. IME goes, you say? Ah no! Time goes, you say?-ah no! Ours is the eyes' deceit Of men whose flying feet Lead through some landscape low; We pass, and think we see Alas, Time stays-we go! THE PARADOX OF TIME. 279 Once, in the days of old, Your locks were curling gold, And mine had shamed the crow; Now, in the self-same stage, Time goes, you say?-ah no! Once, when my voice was strong, To praise your "rose" and "snow": My bird, that sung, is dead; Alas, Time stays-we go! See, in what traversed ways, The hopes we used to know; Time goes, you say?-ah no! How far, how far, O Sweet, Now, on the forward way, Alas, Time stays - we go! Mortality. H, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie. The child that a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant's affection that proved, The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by; And the memory of those that beloved her and praised, The hand of the king that the scepter hath born. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep, The beggar that wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. MORTALITY. The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven, So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed, So the multitude comes, even those we behold, For we are the same that our fathers have been; 281 The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; They loved, but their story we cannot unfold; They died, ―ay! they died; and we things that are now, Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, And the smile and the tear and the song and the dirge Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? The Bay of New York. AVE you ever seen the Bay of New York, Where a navy at anchor in safety may ride, Nor fear any danger from wind or from tide, Though storms break over the lea?— On whose waters the flags of all nations are seen, In the beautiful Bay of New York? Whose quiet and safety the mariner hails, As he comes from over the main; Where the Storm-King's cohorts held unlimited sway, Where the emigrant's eye kindles up with delight, As he looks on the not distant shore; |