Classic Poem

'Tis " vanity of vanities " thus said
The Preacher, in the ages long since dead.

And " vanity of vanities, " the cry
Rings on the air of every century.

The worldling, pleasure-worn, toil-wearied, asks,
" Is life worth living, " with its weary tasks?

Religion, with her faithless moan, appears,
And says, The world is but " a vale of tears. "

" O fools and blind! " the wonder-feast to spite,
Whose own wild folly's dulled your appetite!

A blind man through a wondrous picture hall
Went muttering about each " empty wall. "

A deaf man, when a symphony was sung,
Much marvelled at each mute and voiceless tongue.

And one, whose sense of smell was lost, deplored
Their folly who the odorous rose adored.

And one, heart-shrivelled by his heartless loves,
Mocked at young lovers and at cooing doves.

And one, who talked of solid facts, oft smiled
At those by poetry and art beguiled.

" O fools and blind! " The farmer wonders why
The scholar studies, with admiring eye,

The tiny scratches on the boulder's top,
Whose huge obstruction only hurts his crop.

Meanwhile, the scholar in the boulder sees
The wondrous story of lost centuries.

The stolid Arab, under desert skies,
Sees where afar the Pyramids arise;

But on their rocky, weather-beaten page,
Reads not the strange tale of a buried age.

The peasant by the Swiss lakes sees not there
The pile-raised village lift itself in air.

And bones and arrow-heads are rubbish all
To him who hears no far-off ages call,

From out the silence of the past, to say,
" We were the fathers of your glad to-day. "

Oh, wonder of the world, whose surface bright
Fills wide-eyed childhood with a fresh delight!

Beneath the surface, to exploring eyes,
Deep yawns to deep, and heights on heights arise.

Each grass-blade and each gaseous atom holds
An infinite mystery, that his thought unfolds

Who knows each molecule the kinsman is
Of every star-ray piercing the abyss.

And not one lowly blossom in the vale
But to the instructed ear can tell a tale,

Whose opening chapter was the eternal past,
And is not done while endless ages last.

Short is his fathom-line who thinks he sounds —
And finds it shallow — being's dread profounds.

The emptiness is in the pool that lies
Too shoal to hold the stars and boundless skies.

Oh, when I look upon the laughing face
Of children, or on woman's gentle grace;

Or when I grasp a true friend by the hand,
And feel a bond I partly understand;

When mountains thrill me, or when by the sea
The plaintive waves rehearse their mystery

Or when I watch the moon with strange delight,
Treading her pathway 'mid the stars at night;

Or when the one I love, with kisses prest,
I clasp with bliss unspoken to my breast, —

So strange, so deep, so wondrous life appears,
I have no words, but only happy tears!

I cannot think it all shall end in naught;
That the abyss shall be the grave of thought;

That e'er oblivion's shoreless sea shall roll
O'er love and wonder and the lifeless soul.

But, e'en though this the end, I cannot say
I'm sorry that I saw the light of day.

So wondrous seems this life I live to me,
Whate'er the end, to-day I hear and see!

To-day I think and hope! and so for this —
If it must be — for just so much of bliss, —

Bliss threaded through with pain, — I bless the Power
That holds me up to gaze one wondrous hour!