Shall the light of our life end in darkness?
Yea, die out in darkness and space,
Like the fugitive gleam of a meteor,
When ending its vanishing race;
Which fades into darkness for over,
As it crumbles to dust on the earth
In ashes, whose coldness may never
Re-kindle again with bright birth.
Were we aimlessly given existence
To suffer far more than enjoy?
Were we carelessly brought into being,
Which Fate with a breath may destroy?
If so, then the bright worlds of Heaven
Are Goliaths of sorrow and death,
And in cruelty only was given
To mortal the boon of his breath!
For we enter this life with sad crying,
And leave it with suffering moan,
And its troubles are echoed with sighing,
And its agony's voice ie a groan!
And but few are its moments of laughter,
And its happiness shadowed with dread
Of a hidden and awful hereafter
When our dust goeth down to the dead.
Yea, were we but brought into being
To perish for over with time,
Man might doubt in his God as "all-seeing"
And eternal in purpose sublime!
For, whatever earth's trial or sorrow,
Some innermost consciousness saith
"Some happy 'hereafter' to-morrow
Shall justify fully all faith
"That earth's pilgrimage leads up to Heaven
Through darkness -- if reverent trod --
And to infinite happiness given
By the measureless mercy of God."
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 11 September 1880
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
Yea, die out in darkness and space,
Like the fugitive gleam of a meteor,
When ending its vanishing race;
Which fades into darkness for over,
As it crumbles to dust on the earth
In ashes, whose coldness may never
Re-kindle again with bright birth.
Were we aimlessly given existence
To suffer far more than enjoy?
Were we carelessly brought into being,
Which Fate with a breath may destroy?
If so, then the bright worlds of Heaven
Are Goliaths of sorrow and death,
And in cruelty only was given
To mortal the boon of his breath!
For we enter this life with sad crying,
And leave it with suffering moan,
And its troubles are echoed with sighing,
And its agony's voice ie a groan!
And but few are its moments of laughter,
And its happiness shadowed with dread
Of a hidden and awful hereafter
When our dust goeth down to the dead.
Yea, were we but brought into being
To perish for over with time,
Man might doubt in his God as "all-seeing"
And eternal in purpose sublime!
For, whatever earth's trial or sorrow,
Some innermost consciousness saith
"Some happy 'hereafter' to-morrow
Shall justify fully all faith
"That earth's pilgrimage leads up to Heaven
Through darkness -- if reverent trod --
And to infinite happiness given
By the measureless mercy of God."
First published in The Australian Town and Country Journal, 11 September 1880
Author reference site: Austlit
See also.
