Life
LIFE, once a perfumed flower, a luscious fruit,
Sweet to each sense with sweetness still uncloying,
A growing tree from leafy crown to root,
Is now a withered bough, an empty husk;
No sunbeam cheers it, and no breezes toying
Make music in its leaves from dawn to dusk.
Life, once a stormy sea whose gathering waves
Beat high against the sullen cliffs of Fate,
And thundered in the depth of ocean caves,
Now sinks to silence,—hushed the angry roar—
And leaves the raging waters far flung spate
An ebbing tide upon a lonely shore.