Page:Is Life Worth Living?.djvu/19

Our shadowy congregation rested still,
As musing on that message we had heard
And brooding on that ‘End it when you will’;
Perchance awaiting yet some other word;
When keen as lightning through a muffled sky
Sprang forth a shrill and lamentable cry:–

The man speaks sooth, alas! the man speaks sooth,
We have no personal life beyond the grave;
There is no God; Fate knows nor wrath nor ruth:
Can I find here the comfort which I crave?

In all eternity I had one chance,
One few years’ term of gracious human life:
The splendors of the intellect’s advance,
The sweetness of the home with babes and wife;

The social pleasures with their genial wit;
The fascination of the worlds of art;
The glories of the worlds of nature lit
By large imagination’s glowing heart;

The rapture of mere being, full of health;
The careless childhood and the ardent youth,
The strenuous manhood winning various wealth,
The reverend age serene with life’s long truth:

All the sublime prerogatives of Man;
The storied memories of the times of old,
The patient tracking of the world’s great plan
Through sequences and changes myriadfold.