Classic Poem

Why should we toil for hoarded gain,
Or waste in strife our nobler powers,
Or follow Pleasure's glittering train?
O, let a happier choice be ours.

Death shall unnerve the arm of power,
Unclasp the firmest grasp on gold,
And scatter wide in one brief hour
The treasured heaps of wealth untold.

The hero's glory, and his fame,
Built up mid crime, and blood, and tears,
Are but a transient flash of flame
Amid the eternal night of years.

He whom but yesterday we saw
Earth's mightiest prince, is gone to day;
All systems, creeds, save Truth's great law,
Are borne along and swept away.

And Fashion's forms and gilded show,
Shall vanish with the fleeting breath;
And Pleasure's votaries shall know
Their folly at the gates of death.

But he who delves for buried thought,
And seeks with care for hidden truth,
Shall find in age, unasked, unbought,
A rich reward for toil in youth.

Aye more,—away beyond life's goal,
Of earnest toil each weary day
Shall light the pathway of the soul
Far on its onward, upward way.

Then who can tell how wide a sphere
Of thought and deed shall be his lot,
Who treasured truth and knowledge here,
And doing good, himself forgot?