Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/278

Oh boasted joys of earth! how swift ye fly,
Rent from the heart or hidden from the eye;
So through the web the weaver's shuttle glides,
So speeds the vessel o'er the billowy tides,
So cleaves the bird the liquid fields of light,
And leaves no furrow of its trackless flight.

Dust tends to dust, with ashes, ashes blend,
Yet when the grave ingulfs the buried friend,
A few brief sighs may mark its yawning brink,
A few salt tears the broken clods may drink,
A few sad hearts with bursting anguish bleed,
And pay that tribute which they soon must need.

They soon must need! But life's returning cares
Sweep off the precious fruit that sorrow bears;
The mourner drops his sable, and aspires
To light anew ambition's smother'd fires,
Bathes his worn brow with labour's wasting dew,
And sleepless toils for heirs he knows not who.

Then He who marks us in our vain career,
Oft smites in mercy what we hold most dear,
Shreds from our vine the bowering leaves away,
And breaks its tendrils from their grovelling stay,
That the rich clusters, lifted to the sky,
May ripen better for a world on high.