EPHEMERA.

———

BY CHARLES WEST THOMSON.

———

Well might weep the sentimental Persian,

Looking o’er his host of armed men,

When on Greece he made his wild incursion,

Whence so few might e’er return again.

Well might he weep o’er those countless millions,

Dreaming of the future and the past,

As he gazed, amid the gold pavilions

Round his throne, upon that crowd so vast.

Musing, with subdued and solemn feelings,

On the awful thoughts that filled his soul—

One of those most terrible revealings

That will sometimes o’er the spirit roll.

Thoughts, that of that multitude before him

Panting high for fame—athirst to strive—

Ere old Time had sped a century o’er him,

Not, perhaps, would one be left alive.

That those hearts, now bounding in the glory

Of existence, would be hushed and cold;

Not their very names preserved in story,

Nor upon fame’s chronicle enrolled.

All to earth, their proper home, departed;

Light heart, strong hand, all gone to kindred clay;

And, in their vacant room, a new race started,

Careless of the millions past away.

Well might weep he—well might we, in weeping,

Make our offering at sorrow’s call—

When we ponder how our days are creeping,

Like the shadow on the wall.

When we think how soon the sun-beam, setting,

Will depart, and leave it all in shade—

And our very friends will be forgetting

That the daylight o’er it ever played.

Life, upon a swallow’s wing is flying,

O’er the earth it sparkles and is gone;

All our days are but a lengthened dying—

One dark hour before the eternal dawn.

Riches, glory, honor, fame, ambition—

All as swiftly fly, as soon are fled;

Or, if gathered, mend they our condition?

What delight can these afford the dead?

Chase no more the phantom of the dreaming—

Weary is the hunt, the capture vain;

When thy arms embrace the golden seeming,

It will vanish from thy grasp again.

Trouble not thy heart with anxious carings—

Thou art but a shadow—so are they;

Let the things of Heaven deserve thy darings,

They alone will never pass away.