All is as the end is.
Those were thy words, part of the street-learn'd lore
Garnered by thee and murmured mid the hum
Of Stamboul's throughfares, O Chrysostom,
Heaven's blameless beacon by the Bosphor shore,
Golden-mouthed angel of Byzantium!
All is as the end is.
Forth, ye muezzins on your minarets,
Where Prayer still bows and pays her evening debts,
Cry ye to man when man all hope forgets; —
Say: All is as the end is;
Call no day dark or bright till the sun sets.

All is as the end is.
What train is this that threads the staring street?
Whom do they circle with such circumstance?
Pass they to court, or nuptial feast, or dance?
Thine eyes, O Chrysostom, are turned to greet
The pageant, while thou say'st in thoughtful trance, —
All is as the end is.
Oft one foul deed a whole fair life o'ersets.
Caught in the law's inextricable nets,
For yon poor wight his blade the headsman whets,
Then all is as the end is.
Call no day bright or fair till the sun sets.

All is as the end is.
Again low-murmured from thy golden tongue
We hear the self-same words, when through the din
And darkness of thy city's shame and sin
Thou cam'st, as guest, thy feasting friends among,
Where at the threshold sang thy heart with in, —
All is as the end is.
No more for his past pains the feaster frets,
When at the song-soothed feast he smiles and wets
In red wine the rose-wreathen coronets.
Then all is as the end is.
Call no day dark or drear till the sun sets.

All is as the end is.
What of dark days if evenings be serene?
The Past, the Past makes not our destiny,
But that which in the Future still we see.
Man is not always what he once has been,
But rather what he hopes and strives to be.
All is as the end is.
Duty may spring from pangs which Grief begets
And Life's best purposes from dead regrets,
Like scent distilled from vanished violets.
For all is as the end is.
Call no day dark or bright till the sun sets.