1.
WHY do we rest our anxious hopes below,
And fancy bliss beyond misfortune’s reach,
While every “light affliction,” every woe
Does some new lesson by experience teach?
2.
Gay fancy pictures, with her mimic skill,
Scenes of felicity which hope endears;
And each succeeding picture, smiling still,
Dispels our doubts, our sorrows and our fears.
3.
All things below this constant truth proclaim,
That vain and fruitless are our earthly schemes,
That wealth and genius, beauty, pomp and fame,
Are all vain shadows and delusive dreams.
4.
When the torn heart is rent with anxious care,
Or the frail body sinks beneath the weight,
Search the wide earth–it finds no comfort there;
Look to the skies–and Hope sweet smiles again.
5.
When youth and health attend our giddy hours,
Careless we spread our wide-extended sails;
Gay smiling pleasure shews her rosy bowers,
And flatt’ring fancy lends her fav’ring gales.
6.
But quickly comes misfortune’s dreaded blast,
And Hope, wild fluttering, smiles her last adieu!
Affliction’s storms our brilliant days o’ercast,
Too late we find our airy schemes untrue.
7.
How oft in Melancholy’s pensive hour,
Unrivalled sadness spreads her deepest gloom;
The sable Goddess, with her solemn power,
Diffuses round the horrors of the Tomb.
8.
In this lone silence, this repose of mind,
How small, how trifling does the world appear,
When all our thoughts, elated and refined,
Soar above Earth to yon effulgent sphere.
9.
In yon resplendent realms of joy and light,
Does happiness, unmixt, for ever bloom;
There shines the day without return of night,
Unfading joys beyond the dreary tomb.
(Mary Abel Clinckett)
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