The briefest part of life's uncertain day,
Youth's lovely blossom, hastes to swift decay:
While love, wine, song, enhance our gayest mood
Old age creeps on, nor thought, nor understood.
A thousand shapes our varying Fates assume,
The Gods perform what we could least expect,
And oft' the things for which we fondly hop'd
Come not to pass: but Heaven still finds a clue
To guide our steps through life's perplexing maze.
Most of life's offices may overlap,
And form a covert for the growth of thought;
But there are some no thought and no device
May ever join; or if perchance they do,
Or this or that will soon unsightly warp,
Like green material, and give recourse
To the disastrous airs of circumstance.
‘Life’s a cigar’: the wasting body glows;
The head turns white as Kosciusko’s snows;
And, with the last soul-fragrance still in air,
The ashes slowly sink in soft repose.
Life is a language every man must use,
Some with a wondrous faculty, and some
So blindly that they seem like Caliban
Or e'er the good and great magician took
Pity upon his impotence, and made
The discord of his reason musical.
Life can bring failure.
Life can bring frustration.
Life can bring destruction.
Life can offer many sad stories.
But work can offer
Only one thing: perfection,
The life of perfection.
Life, death, - death, life; the words have led for ages
Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed
Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages
Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.
Life only is, or death is life disguised, -
Life a short death until by Life we are surprised.
Out of the infinite sea of eternity
To climb, and for an instant stand
Upon an island speck of time.
From the impassible peace of the darkness
To wake, and blink at the garish light
Through one short hour of fretfulness.
Gestern liebt ich,
Heute leid ich,
Morgen sterb ich:
Dennoch denk ich
Heut und morgen
Gern an gestern.
Ehret, Brueder, meine Schoene,
Ehrt die gallische Helene!
Bacchus selber ehret sie.
Juengst an ihrer stolzen Rechte,
Als er mit uns beiden zechte,
Ward er, denn sie schenkt' ihm ein,
Voller noch von Lieb als Wein.
