Life and Existence

I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, And the beauty and majesty of the ships, And the magic of the sea.

A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

The long mysterious Exodus of death.

As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman, Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him, yet she follows, Useless each without the other!

And see! she stirs! She starts—she moves—she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel.

I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where.

The bards sublime, Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of Time.

A banner with the strange device, Excelsior!

Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman’s Woe!

But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.

A little sunburnt by the glare of life.

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Because God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.

“Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death,” I said. But there The silver answer rang—“Not Death, but Love.”

Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.

They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.