University of Virginia Library

Bits of gladness and of sorrow,
Strangely crossed and interlaid,
Bits of cloud-belt and of rainbow,
In deep alternate braid;
Bits of storm, when winds are warring,
Bits of calm, when blasts are stayed;
Bits of silence and of uproar,
Bits of sunlight and of shade;
Bits of forest-smothered hollow,
And of open sunny glade;
Stripes of garden and of moorland,
Heath and rose together laid;
Serest leaf of brown October,
April's youngest, greenest blade.
Bits of day-spring and of sunset,
Of the midnight, of the noon;
Snow and ice of pale December,
Living flush of crimson June.
Sands of Egypt, fields of Sharon,
Rush of Jordan, sweep of Nile;
Wells of Marah, shades of Elim,
Sinai's frown, and Carmel's smile.
Depths of valley, peaks of mountain,
Stretch of verdure-loving plain;
Barren miles of ocean-shingle,
Fertile straths of smiling grain.
Broken shafts of Tyrian columns,
Rolled and worn by wave and time;
Miles of colonnade and grandeur,
Luxor's still majestic prime.

Truest music, jarring discord,
Voice of trumpet and of lute;
The thunder-shower's loud lashing,
And the dew-fall soft and mute.
Now the garland, now the coffin,
Now the wedding, now the tomb;
Now the festal shout of thousands,
Now the churchyard's lonely gloom.
Now the song above the living,
Now the chaunt above the dead;
The smooth smile of infant beauty,
Age's wan and furrowed head.

These are the mingled seeds,
Some flowers, some idle weeds,
Some crowded, some alone,
With which man's field is sown,
And from which springs the one
Great harvest of a life that can
Be lived but once by man!
With these,—the threads of hope and fear,
Of ill and good—thou weavest here,
O dweller in this fallen clime,
Thy portion of the web of time!
These are the stones with which, O man,
Thou build'st, too oft without a plan,
Life's lordly hall or lowly cot,
The Babel or the Salem of thy lot.