"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER." 1. FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine, I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes, 2. I strive to number o'er what days There rose no day, there roll'd no hour And not a trapping deck'd my power 3. The serpent of the field, by art And spells, is won from harming; It will not list to wisdom's lore, WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY. 1. WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. By steps each planet's heavenly way? 2. Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, A thought unseen, but seeing all, In one broad glance the soul beholds, 3. Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, 4. Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, Its years as moments shall endure. O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die. VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. 1. THE King was on his throne, The godless Heathen's wine! 2. In that same hour and hall, And wrote as if on sand: The fingers of a man;— Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. 3. The monarch saw, and shook, And bade no more rejoice; All bloodless wax'd his look, And tremulous his voice. "Let the men of lore appear, "The wisest of the earth, "And expound the words of fear, "Which mar our royal mirth." |