A SIMILE.
I.
Like wayward flocks of lambs and sheep,
We Clouds upon the soft warm sky,
Over hamlet, vale, or steep,
Gather or scatter, faint or fly,
White and bright from land to land,
From hill to hill, by light winds fanned:
As travellers loitering on their track,
Or bather slumbering on his back,
Children of the sun-god are we
O'er harvest champaign, teeming sea;
In this the noontide of our day
We laugh at change, yet must not stay.
II.
Oh blood-red change! all passed away,
All passed with him the lord of Life:
We, hid in blank night, well-a-day!
Powerless, lost to joys or strife,
Lost to ourselves, lost, lost are we,
By soulless winds on soulless sea,
Swathed, blindfolded, rolled along
Beyond man's voice or angel's song,
Unseen e'en by cold stars we hie
Far up within black wastes of sky,
Wrapped in shrouds of darkest spun,
Never more to see the sun.
