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To this fair world our human hearts
 Their hopes and longings bring,
And o’er its beauty and its bloom
 Their own dark shadows fling.

Between the future and the past
 In wild unrest we stand;
And ever as our feet advance,
 Retreats the promised land.

And though Love, Fame, and Wealth and Power,
 Bind in their gilded bond,
We pine to grasp the unattained—
 The something still beyond.

And, beating on their prison bars,
 Our spirits ask more room,
And with unanswered questionings,
 They pierce beyond the tomb.

Then say thou not, oh doubtful heart,
 There is no life to come;
That in some tearless, cloudless land,
 Thou shalt not find thy home.