Few are thy days, and full of woe, O man, of woman born! Thy doom is written, ‘Dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.’ | Behold the emblem of thy state in flow’rs that bloom and die, Or in the shadow’s fleeting form, that mocks the gazer’s eye. | Guilty and frail, how shalt thou stand before thy sov’reign Lord? Can troubled and polluted springs a hallowed stream afford? | Determined are the days that fly successive o’er thy head; The numbered hour is on the wing that lays thee with the dead. | Great God! afflict not in thy wrath the short allotted span That bounds the few and weary days of pilgrimage to man. | All nature dies, and lives again: the flow’r that paints the field, The trees that crown the mountain’s brow, and boughs and blossoms yield, | Resign the honours of their form at Winter’s stormy blast, And leave the naked leafless plain a desolated waste. | Yet soon reviving plants and flow’rs anew shall deck the plain; The woods shall hear the voice of Spring, and flourish green again. | 126 But man forsakes this earthly scene, ah! never to return: Shall any foll’wing spring revive the ashes of the urn? | The mighty flood that rolls along its torrents to the main, Can ne’er recall its waters lost from that abyss again. | So days, and years, and ages past, descending down to night, Can henceforth never more return back to the gates of light; | And man, when laid in lonesome grave, shall sleep in Death’s dark gloom, Until th’ eternal morning wake the slumbers of the tomb, | O may the grave become to me the bed of peaceful rest, Whence I shall gladly rise at length, and mingle with the blest! | Cheered by this hope, with patient mind, I’ll wait Heav’n’s high decree, Till the appointed period come, when death shall set me free. | |