Earth's Mystery

I looked on Sorrow, tragical and dread;Beheld the anguish in her sunken eyes,Which yearned no longer upward to the skies,—As dumbly pleading to be comforted,—But bent their blinded vision on the dead:The dead removed—how far!—from human sighs,Lying majestic, as a conqueror lies,Indifferent to tears, so costly shed.

But as I pondered, seeking, soul-oppressed,To read the riddle of a world like this—Where Nature still seems waiting to destroy,I saw immortal Love descend and kiss,With timid wonder, reverent and blest,The quivering eyelids and the lips of Joy!