Sursum Corda

Theodore Chickering Williams

Not a star a moment stays;
Every beam it gives replaces
Starry beams of vanished days
Into endless darkness sped.
The lifted Alp's perpetual head
Crumbles away, and every storm defaces
Som fragment of its fiery prime;
The mountain granit yields to time
Surely as blown roses fail,
Or the cheek of youth turns pale,
Or o'er the poet's would-be deathless rhyme
Oblivious years prevail.

Why, then, O my frivolous soul!
Sue or execrate the skies,
If visibly before thy wrathful eyes
Some mansion melt which once thou couldst control?
Shall the fading rainbow grieve thee?
Or if lovely music leave thee,
Wilt thou curse it as it goes?
Wilt thou in scorn
Keep the the thorn
And trample fiercely on a faded rose?

Rather thou shalt be aware,
As life's apparition flows,
Of earth and sky whence thou didst pluck thy rose;
Of a boundless wealth and free
That can a million-fold repair
The broken beauty that now grieveth thee.

Battle lost, or battle won,
Glorious the conflict done.
Go, rainbows! I have found the sun.