 | Knitting-work |  |
HIGHER.
Pleased with our loves and low desires,
We sit like children midst the flowers,
No thought our listless soul inspires,
Or wakes to life its nobler powers;
We feel the sunshine round us glow,
And smile in imbecile content,
Letting the golden moments go
That heaven for ripe fruition meant.
As one by one our idols fade,
We moping sit and weakly sigh
That earthly loves so frail are made,
That earthly hopes should ever die!
Amid the beauteous wreck we mourn
Our altars prostrate in the dust,
And to the opening future turn
With heart of doubting and distrust.
Captive we lie in flowery chains,
By enervating pleasure bound,
Forgetting life's broad battle-plains,
Where work and its reward are found —
Forgetting for the grovelling toys,
Around our feet as meshes spread,
E'er to look upward for the joys
That hang in clusters o'er our head.
How idle we to strive to hold
The shadows that our joys eclipse,
Or eat the fruit of seeming gold
That breaks in ashes on our lips,
When ready to our outstretched hand
Celestial fruits their claims commend,
The product of that promised land
To which all manly strivings tend!
We sit like children midst the flowers,
No thought our listless soul inspires,
Or wakes to life its nobler powers;
We feel the sunshine round us glow,
And smile in imbecile content,
Letting the golden moments go
That heaven for ripe fruition meant.
As one by one our idols fade,
We moping sit and weakly sigh
That earthly loves so frail are made,
That earthly hopes should ever die!
Amid the beauteous wreck we mourn
Our altars prostrate in the dust,
And to the opening future turn
With heart of doubting and distrust.
Captive we lie in flowery chains,
By enervating pleasure bound,
Forgetting life's broad battle-plains,
Where work and its reward are found —
Forgetting for the grovelling toys,
Around our feet as meshes spread,
E'er to look upward for the joys
That hang in clusters o'er our head.
How idle we to strive to hold
The shadows that our joys eclipse,
Or eat the fruit of seeming gold
That breaks in ashes on our lips,
When ready to our outstretched hand
Celestial fruits their claims commend,
The product of that promised land
To which all manly strivings tend!
| Knitting-work | |