Page:Home; or, The unlost paradise (IA homeorunlostpara00palm).pdf/62

Bring ceaseless change. Lo! Morning with her dews,
And songs and bloom; still Evening with her shades;
Sabbaths with holy calm, that yield too soon
To seasons given to rounds of wearying toil;
Months marked by waxing and by waning moons;
Spring with its waking life, Summer arrayed
In robes that fade so soon; Autumn that strips
The teeming fields, and leaves them brown and sere;
Winter that with his storms deep buries all
Kind Nature's smiles beneath his chilling snows!
Each comes but to depart, nor long abides.
See how like withering grass all beauty fades,
And strength to weakness turns; how the firm rock
Slowly, but surely, crumbleth back to dust;
How life's uncounted forms dissolve, O Death,
At thy cold touch that blighteth all alike!
Hath earth one spot so sheltered, so secure,
That there no change, no pang, no sense of loss,
No fear of ill, no sorrow, e'er can come?
No: even within thy precincts, sacred Home,
Must it at last be known that 'neath the sun
No mortal heart can beat and feel no wound.