Poem 3

Hurrying for ever in their restless flightThe generations of earth's teeming wombRise into being and lapse into the tombLike transient bubbles sparkling in the light;They sink in quick succession out of sightInto the thick insuperable gloomOur futile lives in flashing by illume—Lightning which mocks the darkness of the night.

Nay—but consider, though we change and die,If men must pass shall Man not still remain?As the unnumbered drops of summer rainWhose changing particles unchanged on high,Fixed, in perpetual motion, yet maintainThe mystic bow emblazoned on the sky.