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IS the promise of day merely darkness,
Is sleep full fruition for strife,
Is the grave compensation for sorrow,
Is Nirvana the answer to life?
Is there no unobscured revelation
The evil of Earth to explain,—
No word of compassion to soften
The terrible riddle of pain?
In cold, imperturbable silence
The planets revolve in their course,
And Nature is deaf to entreaty,
Untroubled by doubt or remorse;
The snows, far outspread on her mountains,
Dissolve, nor her mandate gainsay,
And the cloud is consumed at her bidding,
And vanisheth quickly away.
And man?—shall he fade like the cloud-wreath,
And waste, unresisting, like snow,
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