Loftus MacInnes
Loftus MacInnes
O pale Star of Hope
Give back thy lost light
To us, that must grope
In the murk of the night!
EVOLUTION: A.D. 1918
DULL ways and weary,
Bright words and cheery
Fall flat on the ear.
Young worlds wax older,
Warm hearts grow colder,
Faint embers smoulder
And fast disappear.
Youth grimly dying,
Age feebly sighing,
Echo replying
'Seek only a bier.'
Idols fall broken,
Prayers go unspoken,
All things betoken
Life's winter here.
The rill that ran vagrant,
Sinks still and stagnant,
Flowers that bloomed fragrant
Droop withered and sere.
Each rose-tinted gleaming
Of olden time, dreaming
Has fled with the seeming
That bade it appear.
We wait no to-morrow:
We seek not to borrow
Hope from old sorrow,
Nor dread from old fear.
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