Classic Poem

Joy is a beautiful young runner
Continually bringing to our lips,
A jar from the fountain.
But Sorrow is beloved of the eternities.
She descends to the hut of the fisherman,
Nestled in the rocks,
Just beyond the edge of foam.
And comes, also, to the palace
Built proudly on a hill.
Her eyes are sad as the Moon when it has fallen;
Her lips firm as the lips of a wrestler.
She is the great Sculptor, fashioning the soul.
She models us to beauty.
Knowledge nestles between her knees,
As a child between the knees of his mother.
She has come to me and lifted me up.
She would not comfort me, but she lifted me up.
She led me down, also, into purple depths,
Whence, turning suddenly, I saw
The heights, touched with sunrise.
She shielded me in shadow and showed me the sunrise.
Sorrow is the strength of the world;
Death but a pause in the great harmony,
Chanted upon silver strings.
Death, the eternal sorrow;
Sorrow, the eternal aggrandizer.