OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD
by: William Knox (1789-1825)
- H! why should
the spirit of mortal be proud?
- Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
- A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
- Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
-
- The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
- Be scattered around, and together be laid;
- And the young and the old, and the low and the high
- Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.
-
- The infant a mother attended and loved;
- The mother that infant's affection who proved;
- The husband that mother and infant who blessed,--
- Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
-
- The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
- Shone beauty and pleasure,--her triumphs are by;
- And the memory of those who loved her and praised
- Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
-
- The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
- The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
- The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
- Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.
-
- The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
- The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
- The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
- Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
-
- The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven;
- The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
- The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
- Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
-
- So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
- That withers away to let others succeed;
- So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
- To repeat every tale that has often been told.
-
- For we are the same our fathers have been;
- We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
- We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
- And run the same course our fathers have run.
-
- The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
- From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
- To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
- But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.
-
- They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
- The scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
- They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
- They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
-
- They died, aye! they died; and we things that are now,
- Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
- Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
- Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
-
- Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
- We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
- And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
- Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
-
- 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
- From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
- From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,--
- Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
"Oh! Why Should the Spirit
of Mortal Be Proud" is reprinted from One Hundred Choice
Selections. Ed. Phineas Garrett. Philadelphia: Penn Publishing
Co., 1897. |
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POEMS BY WILLIAM KNOX |
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