Classic Poem

1.

To live in vain! to live in pain!
To toil in hopeless sadness!
Is this the doom of godlike man,
Oh, God of Love and Gladness?
Not so the rose in summer blows,
Not so the moon her changes knows,
Not so the storm his madness.

2.

From storms that rock the oak to sleep,
Thy woods their beauty borrow;
And flowers, to-day, unheeded weep,
Whose seeds will live to-morrow:
So man, by painful ages taught,
Will build, at last, on truthful thought,
And wisdom, won from sorrow.

3.

Else, what a lie were written wide,
By thy right hand, my Father,
O'er all thy seas, in crimson dyed
When Morning is a bather;
O'er all thy vales of growing gold;
Or where, on mountains black with cold,
Thy clouds to battle gather.