The World.

‘T is all a great show,
The world that we’re in,
None can tell when ‘twas finished,
None saw it begin;
Men wander and gaze through
Its courts and its halls,
Like children whose love is
The picture-hung walls.

There are flowers in the meadow,
There are clouds in the sky,
Songs pour from the wood-land,
The waters glide by;
Too many, too many
For eye or for ear,
The sights that we see,
And the sounds that we hear.

A weight as of slumber
Comes down on the mind,
So swift is Life’s train
To its objects we’re blind;
I myself am but one
In the fleet-gliding show,
Like others I walk,
But know not where I go.

One saint to another
I heard say ‘How long?’
I listened, but nought more
I heard of his song;
The shadows are walking
Through city and plain,—
How long shall the night
And its shadow remain?

How long ere shall shine
In this glimmer of things
The Light of which prophet
In prophecy sings;
And the gates of that city
Be open, whose sun
No more to the west
Its circuit shall run!