Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/225

Of varied hue, and gave the enamel'd robe,
Deep-wrought with gold?
                                       Thou wert a costly gift.
Perchance, a present to some fair young bride,
Who 'mid her wedding-treasures nicely pack'd
Thee in soft cotton that the jarring wheel
O'er the rough road careering, might not mar
Thy symmetry. Within her new abode,
She proudly plac'd thee, rich with breathing flowers,
And as the magic shell from ocean borne
Doth hoard the murmur of its coral-caves,
So thou didst tell her twilight reverie, tales
Of her far home, and seem to breathe the tones
Of her young, sporting sisters.
                                               'Tis in vain!
No art may join these fragments, or cement
Their countless chasms.
                                     And yet there's many a wreck
Of costlier things, for which the wealth of Earth
May yield no reparation.
                                        He, who hangs
His all of happiness on beauty's smile,
And 'mid that dear illusion, treads on thorns,
And feels no wound, or climbs the rocky steep
Unconscious of fatigue, hath oft-times mark'd
A dying dolphin's brightness at his feet,
And found it but the bubble of his hope,
Disparting like the rainbow.
                                             They who run
Ambition's race, and on their compeers tread
With fever'd eagerness to grasp the goal,