'Tis for some a grand poem of pleasure,
'Tis for poets a poem of pain;
And for others a scintillant treasure,
A blessing, a curse, or a bane:
'Tis for many a ramble and leisure,
And for some 'tis a thing of disdain.

There is ever the failure of trying,
And the swarms of vague manifold fears;
There's the farce of our birth and our dying,
The burlesque of our wretched careers.
There is little of value save sighing,
There is nothing of worth but our tears!

There are false joys, and riches, ambition,
There is Love, there is Fame, there is Art,
Ere we grapple them comes inanition,
Death's shadows can everything part —
All our life-aims are aims of perdition,
And with hopes that are hopeless we start.

Wise is he who a man and a chooser
Spurns Life's book and its pages of days;
Wise is he who is no man's accuser,
Who laughs not, nor sings not, nor prays.
Wise is he who sees all like a muser
Through vague tenebrous shadows of greys.

Be content and live on, nothing claiming,
Shun the mass and their impotent creeds.
See with eye neither lauding nor blaming
Acts of crime or magnificent deeds,
Neither asking, nor hoping, nor aiming
For joys that are barren of seeds.

If we lived through long epochs and ages,
If we saw but a century of peace,
Had we time to calm murmurs and rages,
Had we time to make wickedness cease;
We might barter our faith to the sages,
We might force evil thoughts to decrease.

But we live but an hour and learn not
If that hour will be short or be long;
Shall we rush on ahead, shall we turn not,
Shall our voice be a sigh or a song?
Shall we love not, nor hate not, nor spurn not,
Who can guide to the right from the wrong?

Can we live without error or blunder?
Can we know when to come and to go?
Why love, when Death's sickle asunder
Cleaveth down ev'ry love with a blow?
If the spring turns to winter, why wonder,
Or if roses give way to the snow?

Every sunset in colorful glory
Must bow to the menacing night;
Every moon in its opal sheen, hoary,
Is chased by the dawn's kiss of white;
From chaos there sprang but one story —
Our story of ruin and blight!

Can we aught of the infinite borrow,
Can we plunge in the secrets of glooms?
Can we unveil the formless to-morrow,
Can we sniff at the future's perfumes?
Can we say that in joy or in sorrow
We will reach the pale portals of tombs?

Yet like lost lambs, wolf-scented, we tremble;
We know not, yet would know and groan;
We worship our gods and assemble
In temples of marble and stone;
We pray, hope, fear, lie and dissemble,
Yet we err through Life's vortex alone!

So is wise he who nothing remembers,
Who can banish, forget and ignore;
Who can crush out the slow-burning embers
Of fire-thoughts that burned well in yore;
Who alike blends the Mays with Decembers,
Who cares naught of the past to restore.

Wise is he who regrets not his gladness,
His blisses of childhood now dead;
Wise is he who can laugh at his madness
When youth's ardor ruled heart and ruled head;
Wise is he who finds pleasure in sadness —
In the memories of tears that were shed.