Live for Eternity

A bright or dark eternity in view,
With all its fix'd, unutterable things,
What madness in the living to pursue,
As their chief portion, with the speed of wings,
The joys that death-beds always turn to stings!
Infatuated man, on earth's smooth waste
To dance along the path that always brings
Quick to an end, from which with tenfold haste
Back would he gladly fly till all should be retraced!

Our life is like the hurrying on the eve
Before we start, on some long journey bound,
When fit preparing to the last we leave,
Then run to every room the dwelling round,
And sigh that nothing needed can be found;
Yet go we must, and soon as day shall break;
We snatch an hour's repose, when loud the sound
For our departure calls; we rise and take
A quick and sad farewell, and go ere well awake.

Rear'd in the sunshine, blasted by the storms
Of changing time, scarce asking why or whence,
Men come and go like vegetable forms,
Though heaven appoints for them a work immense,
Demanding constant thought and zeal intense,
Awaked by hopes and fears that leave no room
For rest to mortals in the dread suspense,
While yet they know not if beyond the tomb
A long, long life of bliss or wo shall be their doom.

What matter whether pain or pleasures fill
The swelling heart one little moment here?
From both alike how vain is every thrill,
While an untried eternity is near!
Think not of rest, fond man, in life's career;
The joys and grief that meet thee, dash aside
Like bubb'cs, and thy bark right onward steer
Through calm and tempest, till it cross the tide,
Shoot into port in triumph, or serenely glide.