Mentem Mortalia Tangunt

Now lonely is the wood:
    No flower now lingers, none!
The virgin sisterhood
    Of roses, all are gone;
Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;
And in my heart is grief.

Ah me, for all earth rears,
    The appointed bound is placed!
After a thousand years
    The great oak falls at last:
And thou, more lovely, canst not stay,
Sweet rose, beyond thy day.

Our life is not the life
    Of roses and of leaves;
Else wherefore this deep strife,
    This pain, our soul conceives?
The fall of ev'n such short-lived things
To us some sorrow brings.

And yet, plant, bird, and fly
    Feel no such hidden fire.
Happy they live; and die
    Happy, with no desire.
They in their brief life have fulfill'd
All Nature in them will'd.

And were we also made
    Of like terrestrial mould
We should not be afraid,
    Nor feel the grave so cold;
But, all oblivious of our fate,
Live sweetly out our date.

For the great mother loves
    Her children far too well;
These longings that she moves
    Their own fulfilment tell:
She would not burden us with aught
We really needed not.

O, not in vain she gave
    To the wild birds their wings!
They spread them forth, and have
    Heaven for their wanderings.
But we, to whom no wings are given
Why seek we for a Heaven?

And, when far o'er us fly
    Those voyagers of the air,
Why must we gaze, and sigh,
    O would that I were there?
Why are we restless, ill content,
Tied to one element?

'Tis not that in our tears
    Some happier life we crave;
Our happiest, sweetest years
    Mysterious moments have:
The sense of our brief human lot
Clings to us, haunts our thought.

O then this pleasant earth
    Seems but an alien thing:
Faint grows her busy mirth;
    Far hence our thoughts take wing:
For some enduring home we cry!
She cannot satisfy,

Or bind us: only ties
    Immortal found can bless;
Only in loving eyes
    We see our happiness;
Only upon a loving breast
Our souls find any rest.

Why thirsts the spirit so
    For life? what moves it thus?
'Tis her voice; yes, I know,
    'Tis Nature cries in us:
'Tis no unholy strife of ours
Against forbidding powers.

What though we gaze with fear,
    So blank death seems to be;
What though no land appear
    Beyond that lonely sea;
Still in our hearts her cry doth stay;
She will find out a way.

So in the chrysalis
    Slumber those lovely wings;
So from the shell it is
    The dazzling pearl she brings:
Her glorious works she works alone,
Unfathom'd and unknown!