 | Poems by William Wetmore Story |  |
[I. What were we made for? If to struggle here]
What were we made for? If to struggle here,
To strive, to suffer, train each faculty
With many a pain, and then at last to die
With naught beyond, no fuller, larger sphere
Of onward going unto knowledge clear,—
How vain seems Life—betwixt a smile and sigh
Across Time's section of Infinity
Flitting a moment, but to disappear.
To strive, to suffer, train each faculty
With many a pain, and then at last to die
With naught beyond, no fuller, larger sphere
Of onward going unto knowledge clear,—
How vain seems Life—betwixt a smile and sigh
Across Time's section of Infinity
Flitting a moment, but to disappear.
It cannot be that the Almighty Power
Without our asking makes us thus the prey
Of pain, disease, death; for one little hour
To beat like some poor fly against the pane
Through which he sees the open, boundless day
Of perfect promise,—and but beats in vain.
Without our asking makes us thus the prey
Of pain, disease, death; for one little hour
To beat like some poor fly against the pane
Through which he sees the open, boundless day
Of perfect promise,—and but beats in vain.
| Poems by William Wetmore Story | |