Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/93

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LIFE, DEATH, AND ETERNITY.
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 River, river, brimming river,Broad and deep, and still as Time;Seeming still—yet still in motion,Tending onward to the ocean,        Just like mortal prime.
River, river, rapid river! Swifter now you slip away;Swift and silent as an arrow;Through a channel dark and narrow,        Like life's closing day.
River, river, headlong river, Down you dash into the sea;Sea that line hath never sounded,Sea that voyage hath never rounded,        Like eternity.
Life, Death, and Eternity.
A shadow moving by one's side, That would a substance seem—That is, yet is not,—though descried,— Like skies beneath the stream;A tree that's ever in the bloom, Whose fruit is ever ripe;A wish for joys that never come, Such are the hopes of life.
A dark, inevitable night, A blank that will remain;A waiting for the morning light, When waiting is in vain;A gulf where pathway never led To show the depth beneath;A thing we know not, yet we dread: That dreaded thing is death.
The vaulted void of purple sky That everywhere extends,That stretches from the dazzled eye, In space that never ends;A morning whose uprisen sun No setting e'er shall see;A day that comes without a noon: Such is eternity.
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