Harpers Ferry Free Press

THE MUSE'S SEAT

"It is the gift of Poetry to consecrate every place in which it moves, to breathe around nature an odour more exquisite than the perfume of the rose, and to shed over it a tint more magical than the blush of the morning."

Behold, alas! our days we spend,
How vain they be, how soon they end,
BEHOLD
How short a span
Was long enough of old,
To measure out the life of man;
In those well temper'd days, his time was
then
Survey'd, cast up, and found but three
score years and ten.
ALAS,
And what is that?
They come and slide and pass
Before my pen can tell thee what,
The posts of time are swift, which having
run
Their seven short stages o'er, their short
lived task is done.
OUR DAYS
Begun, we lend
To sleep, to antic plays
And toys, until the first stage end
Twelve waning moons twice five times
told; we give
To unrecovered loss; we rather breathe
than live.
WE SPEND
A ten years' breath,
Before we apprehend
What 'tis to live, or fear in death;
Our childish dreams are filled with painted joys
Which please our sense a while, and waking prove but toys.
HOW VAIN,
How wretched is
Poor man, that doth remain
A slave to such a state as this!
His days are short at longest; few at most;
They are, but bad at best: yet lavished
out, or lost.
THEY BE
The secret springs
That make our minutes fly
On wings more swift than eagles' wings!
Our life's a clock, and every gasp of
breath
Breathes forth a warning grief, till time
shall strike a death!
How soon
Our new-born light
Attains to full-aged noon!
And this, how soon to grey-haired night!
We spring, we bud, we blossom, and we blast
Ere we can count our days, our days they
flee so fast,
THEY END
When scarce begun;
And e'er we apprehend
That we begin to live, our life is done;
Man count thy days; and if they fly too
fast
For thy dull thoughts to count, count every
day the last.