Читать книгу Poems - John L. Stoddard - Страница 13

Table of Contents

The breath of summer stirs the trees,

A thousand roses round me bloom,

Whose saffron petals give the breeze

A wealth of exquisite perfume,

As, climbing high, with tendrils bold,

They clothe the walls with cups of gold.

No sound disturbs the silence sweet,

The weary birds have sunk to rest;

For where the snow and sunset meet

The light is fading in the west,

And now the carking cares of day

Slip lightly from my heart away.

The emptiness of social strife,

The pettiness of human souls,

The cheap frivolities of life,

The keen pursuit of paltry goals—

How small they seem beneath the dome

That shelters my Tyrolean home!

A shining mote, our tiny earth

No furrow leaves in shoreless space!

What is one brief existence worth,

Which disappears, and leaves no trace?

That silent, star-strewn vault survives

The dawns and dusks of countless lives.

Why grieve, dear heart? Oblivion deep

Will soon enshroud both friend and foe,

And those who laugh and those who weep

Must join the hosts of long ago,

Whose transient hours of smiles and tears

Make up earth's wilderness of years.

The sunset's glowing embers die,

The snow-peaks lose their crimson hue,

Through deepening shades the ruddy sky

Burns slowly down to darkest blue,

Wherein a million worlds of light

Announce the coming of the night.

I gaze, and slowly my despair

At human wretchedness and crime

Gives place to hopes and visions fair—

So much may be evolved by time!

So much may yet men's souls surprise

Beneath the splendor of God's skies!

Some day, somewhere, in realms afar

His light may make all problems plain,

And justice on some happier star

May recompense this planet's pain,

And earth's bleak Golgothas of woe

Grow lovely in life's afterglow.