 | Poems |  |
141
IN VIEWING A RUINED HABITATION.
Why should'st thou build thy hall, son of the winged days? thou lookest from the towers to-day, yet a few years and the blast of the desert comes; it howls in the empty court, and whistles around the half-worn shield.—
Ossian.
Life's golden sands, how fast they haste
To run, with ceaseless fall, to waste!
Man's hopes upon this life are placed,
Perhaps, to-day;
To-morrow Death has cold embraced
His lifeless clay.
To run, with ceaseless fall, to waste!
Man's hopes upon this life are placed,
Perhaps, to-day;
To-morrow Death has cold embraced
His lifeless clay.
He builds his hall in hope—alas!
Its portals he must shortly pass,
Borne out a dead, unknowing mass,
In earth to rot.
He reads his “days are as the grass,”
But heeds it not.
Its portals he must shortly pass,
Borne out a dead, unknowing mass,
In earth to rot.
He reads his “days are as the grass,”
But heeds it not.
E'en he, who in yon ruin views
Themes for his moralizing muse,
Forgets that Time his foresight strews
With darkness dim,
And that a silent hall ensues
One day for him!
Themes for his moralizing muse,
Forgets that Time his foresight strews
With darkness dim,
And that a silent hall ensues
One day for him!
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