 | Poetical works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox |  |
145
NOTHING REMAINS
Nothing remains of unrecorded ages
That lie in the silent cemetery of time;
Their wisdom may have shamed our wisest sages,
Their glory may have been indeed sublime.
How weak do seem our strivings after power,
How poor the grandest efforts of our brains,
If out of all we are, in one short hour,
Nothing remains.
That lie in the silent cemetery of time;
Their wisdom may have shamed our wisest sages,
Their glory may have been indeed sublime.
How weak do seem our strivings after power,
How poor the grandest efforts of our brains,
If out of all we are, in one short hour,
Nothing remains.
Nothing remains but the Eternal Spaces,
Time and decay uproot the forest trees.
Even the mighty mountains leave their places,
And sink their haughty heads beneath strange seas;
The great earth writhes in some convulsive spasm
And turns the proudest cities into plains.
The level sea becomes a yawning chasm—
Nothing remains.
Time and decay uproot the forest trees.
Even the mighty mountains leave their places,
And sink their haughty heads beneath strange seas;
The great earth writhes in some convulsive spasm
And turns the proudest cities into plains.
The level sea becomes a yawning chasm—
Nothing remains.
Nothing remains but the Eternal Forces,
The sad seas cease complaining and grow dry.
Rivers are drained and altered in their courses,
Great stars pass out and vanish from the sky.
Ideas die, and old religions perish,
Our rarest pleasures and our keenest pains
Are swept away with all we hate or cherish—
Nothing remains.
The sad seas cease complaining and grow dry.
Rivers are drained and altered in their courses,
Great stars pass out and vanish from the sky.
Ideas die, and old religions perish,
Our rarest pleasures and our keenest pains
Are swept away with all we hate or cherish—
Nothing remains.
146
Nothing remains but the Eternal Nameless
And all-creative spirit of the Law,
Uncomprehended, comprehensive, blameless,
Invincible, resistless, with no flaw;
So full of love it must create for ever,
Destroying that it may create again—
Persistent and perfecting in endeavour,
It yet must bring forth angels, after men—
This, this remains.
And all-creative spirit of the Law,
Uncomprehended, comprehensive, blameless,
Invincible, resistless, with no flaw;
So full of love it must create for ever,
Destroying that it may create again—
Persistent and perfecting in endeavour,
It yet must bring forth angels, after men—
This, this remains.
| Poetical works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox | |