WHEREIN HE FINDS NO RESPITE

Life rushes by on proud impatient feet,
And Death pursues her with a massive stride;
Ills past and present tear the soul aside,
With pain the future threatens to repeat:
I look before and after — pain I meet;
A thousand menaces my peace deride;
Ah, were not pity so involved with pride,
Long, long ago I should have found death sweet!
If ever any joy this heart has known,
Memory on it broods while, tempest-battered,
The winds still howl, the sinister heavens frown;
Even in port no truce prevents this war:
My pilot faint, mast split and sails all shattered,
And sunk forever my accustomed star.