Aspiration--I

The pale and misty particles of Time
Hover about us; scarce our eyes can see
Youth's far-off dream of what we were to be.
Life's truth, which once we would redeem with rhyme,
Has proved instead a world-worn pantomime.
The running river of expediency
Has drowned the hopes that Fortune held in fee--
Why fall upon the track so many climb?

Why strive to speak what all the earth has heard?
Why labor at a work the ages plan?--
Life has been lived so oft--an outworn thing!
Then hark! the time-sweet carol of a bird,
New as a flower; and see--ah, shame to man!
The endless aspiration of the Spring.