Poems (Toke)/Lines (My days on earth as yet are few)

by Emma Toke

LINES.

Y days on earth as yet are few,
 And bright has been their early morn;
Yet still my heart has learned to know
 That every rose must bear a thorn.

Ah, yes! no long-expected day,
 No promised pleasure comes at last,
Without some cloud to dim its ray,
 Some thought of sorrow near or past.

'Tis ever thus, since that dark hour
 When earth received her awful doom,
And felt the curse's withering power
 Tinge all her loveliest scenes with gloom.

The hopes, the joys that mortals prove,
 While through her fallen realms they roam,
Have some dark spot, ordained in love,
 To make them feel earth's not their home.

But all shall not for ever sigh,
 The bow of Hope still gilds the gloom;
There is a light enshrined on high,
 There is a life beyond the tomb.

Then be it mine to seek the way
 That leads to that eternal morn;
That dawning beam of endless day
 Where blooms the rose without a thorn.

E.

Torquay, December 22, 1830.