 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
6
CHANGE-CHEERFULNESS.
Who hath not felt it for a standing sorrowThat everything so perisheth away?
That all the pleasant pastures of To-day
Are in the retrospection of To-morrow
But a burnt sward?—that nothing in one stay
Continueth ever, but, to chanceful change
Hourly submitting, crieth aloud to us,
Mortals, forget things past as best ye may,
And make alliance with things new and strange!
Alas for life, that it is ever thus:
But why Alas? why sorrow? Life must pass,
And passing, perisheth; and blest are they
Whose bright unguilty spirits, glad and gay,
See all things through a rosy-tinctured glass.
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