Classic Poem

There is a stream which flows beneath the skies,
Whose flood is fed by aching hearts and eyes.
Onward it rolls forever down the years,
In seeming peace, yet brimmed with secret tears.

Few seek to trace it to its hidden source;
Few arms are stretched to stay it in its course.
With life it flows, with life's expiring breath
It leaps in anguish to the sea of death.

Yet time's allurements on its surface glow,
And on its banks the flowers of passion blow;
Its charmed water silvers on the oar,
Its hollow laughter peals from shore to shore.

For there the worldlings sail, affect to rest,
Or, sated, sleep upon its fleeting breast;
Or, fevered, wake to find themselves again
But further borne adown this stream of pain.

Beset with fears, perturbed by human ill,
They dread the fated flood, yet haunt it still,
Like Custom's slaves, who, blinded by desire,
Build and rebuild o'er subterranean fire;

Nor note that counter current's strong employ —
The grief, the tears which thrill with finer joy —
The stream which, set against the world's device,
Flows back to Heaven through self-sacrifice.

Or catch a glimpse of that immortal clue,
Yea, clearly see when sense to soul is true;
Yet coldly turn aside, nor seek to gain
The simple issue from the maze of pain.

But idly sigh — " Sufficient for the day
The ills thereof, inseparate from Life's clay; "
Or, " Other men may come when we are gone,
And solve the problem — let the stream roll on! "