Classic Poem

What shall I frame my life to gain?
Not Riches; lower mundane things
Spread wide their fickle treacherous wings,
And who pursues them strives in vain.

Nor Fame; for she fleets faster yet,
Or comes not ere the closing tomb
The sun of Glory sets in gloom,
And the world hastens to forget.

Nor Rank nor Honours. Were it best
Dowered of some weaker soul to live,
Or bear the jewel none can give
Deep in the heart, not on the breast?

Nor Pleasure; for her gains elude
The weary seeker's baffled eyes;
The wanton leaves him when she flies
Bound fast in hopeless servitude

Nor Love, because its flower divine
Blooms with the Morn, nor long can stay,
But withers in Life's fuller day
And leaves the lonely heart to pine.

Nor Beauty; though the fictive hand
Fix some faint glimpses, Time the thief
Cries, “Art is long, and Life is brief,”
And slays us ere we understand.

Nor Learning; for her laboured page
Palls on the soul which nears the Truth;
The thirst for fame, the haste of Youth
Stir not the slower limbs of Age.

To Duty only let me kneel,
Her painful circlet on her brow!
To her, my Queen, my head shall bow,
Not knowing, but content to feel!

All faint, all fade, all pass, but She
Shines clear for young and agèd eyes,
High as the peaks which kiss the skies,
Profound as the unfathomed sea!