Classic Poem

Life is but a being and regretting,
Love, an endless pang that nothing cures;
Ambition, but the spirit's caged fretting,
A dream that flies, a torture that endures.

The sky is ever silent to our praying,
Life is a vapor as the proverb saith;
Do what we will, our helpless hands are playing
But preludes to the tragedy of death.

How ever gently we may wake the spirit, —
The voice which answers from the trembling string —
How ever it may charm the hearts that hear it,
There is one ending to the songs we sing.

What though the tones that make their mystic dwelling
Within the soul have wandered from on high;
What though they stir the pulse, and with their swelling
They wake the starlit echoes of the sky;

What though divinity itself should quicken,
Or inspiration lift the thrilling strain;
The chords, though by the hand of genius stricken,
Will soon give forth alone the cry of pain;
The tones will slacken and heart will sicken,
The weary wings will beat the air in vain.

The cadence dies away at last in sadness,
And silence wraps the instrument — but where,
Oh where, shall wake again the notes of gladness
That here are hushed by brooding dumb despair?
What power shall win that heart to noble madness,
Whose dust is wandering on the idle air?