AND thou, O Life, I fain would know
In such strange guise, whence camest thou;
Whence camest thou to earth, forlorn,
Importunate and beggar-born?
Thou naked, houseless wanderer,
From world to world, whence camst thou here ;
Frail weakling thou, and bounty-fed
By earth in pity of thy need?
Thy shivering form her kindness dressed,
As her own child, in all her best;
She gave thee of herself, and thou
Didst ever take, nor hadst enow,
Though thou didst build a palace fair
And dwelt secure and careless there;
For thou didst change the while it grew
And long for wonders ever new,
Unsated and ungratified
By all thy generous nurse supplied,
Till thou didst claim, by right divine,
Whate'er thou wouldst as only thine;
And then, thou graceless beggar-born,
Thou treatedst her with careless scorn,
And, like a thief that dreads the light,
Thou stol'st away at dead of night,
That none might know the way thou went,
Or claim of thee fair settlement.
They found thy palace tenantless,
And, marvelling at its curiousness,
Restored to earth the gifts she gave,
And named their resting-place a grave.
O Life, whence camest thou to earth?
Did some far orb first give thee birth,
And thou from world to world must climb
Throughout all range of space and time?
Art thou that spirit of the light
God breathed upon the boundless night,
Wherein, amid the ceaseless storm,
Thou shap'dst thyself to thought and form ?
Then passed away-remembering not
Thy former self-to be begot
In higher sphere of sense and thought;
And step by step to this was brought.
And now upon thy heavenward way
Deignest awhile with me to stay.
But soon thou wilt relinquish me,
And on to other worlds wilt flee,
And other form and thought assume
In purer light and larger room,
And glorious grow and lighter tread
Thy path with ever hastening speed,
A meteor circling to its sun,
Or angel hovering near God's throne,
Till, all thy varied journey trod,
Thou shalt ascend and dwell with God.
O Life, when come these things to be,
Wilt thou forget thy home with me,
And nothing know of past annoy
In thy supreme unceasing joy?
AND thou, O Death, whence camest thou?
Art thou that mystery of woe,
That spirit lost from Paradise,
Or fallen angel all too wise?
That thou with Life shouldst consort so,
And like Life's shadow constant go.
Is it in pity of our strife
Thou com'st to free our weary life
When Life has filled its earthly stage,
And grown too mighty for its cage;
And all too small its tenement
Is now to give its hopes content?
Is it to rend the prison wall,
And free Life from its dreary thrall,
To break the chain that binds us down
To the sepulchral dungeon stone,
Thou com'st and dost in guise of friend
So gently to our needs attend,
And soothe life's parting of its smart,
Thou deft practitioner of thy art?
Or comest thou-thou child of Night,
Born of God's frown upon the Light,
A shadow cast athwart our path,
As sign and token of God's wrath,
A gathering cloud in sunny skies
To veil the daylight from our eyes,
An iceberg moving silently
Across the misty summer sea,
When speeds the bark in careless state,
Nor heeds its ever-nearing fate?
We set the sails, the breezes blow,
We try to steer, but know not how,
Well satisfied if on we go;
Anear we see the gleaming waves,
And hear them in the icy caves ;
And yet no meaning to our ears
Their sound, perchance through pity, bears,
And, all unseen amid the gloom,
Floats nearer still that shape of doom;
We feel the chill its presence gives,
And dull and cheerless grow our lives ;`
Nearer and nearer still we float,
And sigh and touch and then are not.
Who and what art thou? Do I err
To call thee Life's interpreter,
And deem thou art in all things wise,
And watchest us with tearful eyes?
While we through glorious mazes strain,
Nor know the goal we strive to gain.
Thou leader of the blind to light,
And sweet restorer of their sight,
Thou art so cognizant of truth,
No sin of ours can mar thy ruth;
Sin is not sin, and stain not stain,
But only frailty and pain,
The accidents of human life,
Or scars begot of mortal strife ;
And thou who knowest all our way,
Our sorrows growing with our stay,
And dullness of our winter's day,
Dost come to give our cares release,
And bid our useless wanderings cease.
O LIFE, I know not who thou art, And yet of me thou hast a part; O Death, thou claimest kin with me, And yet I know not who ye be, Save that to Life thou clingest so, As 'lated friend with friend will go. Mysterious Death; mysterious Life; Twin brothers born to friendly strife; I know ye not save by the thread Of scarlet from my mother's bed, A certain gentleness in death, And patient bating of the breath, A certain wilfulness in life, And aptitude for careless strife. Each like a shadow unto each, Or echo of each other's speech; Ye mingle in each other's motion As glancing sunbeams with the ocean; I know not when I see ye smiling, Whether 'tis Life's or Death's beguiling; I know not how or whence ye came, Joint tenants of this throbbing frame; But ye are here, and ye possess All that of me has blessedness; Ye passed abreast the portal through, Ye shaped the fabric as it grew ; Ye, hand in hand, its cupboards stored With many a strange and curious hoard,
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