THE GOBLET OF LIFE.

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BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

———

Filled is Life’s goblet to the brim;—

And though my eyes with tears are dim,

I see its sparkling bubbles swim,

And chaunt this melancholy hymn,

With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers—no garlands green

Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen,

Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,

Like gleams of sunshine, flash between

The leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,

Is filled with waters that upstart,

When the deep fountains of the heart,

By strong convulsion rent apart,

Are running all to waste;

And, as it mantling passes round,

With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,

Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned,

Are in its waters steeped and drowned,

And give a bitter taste.

Above the humbler plants it towers,

The fennel, with its yellow flowers;

And in an earlier age than ours

Was gifted with the wondrous powers

Lost vision to restore:

It gave new strength and fearless mood,

And gladiators fierce and rude

Mingled it in their daily food;

And he who battled and subdued

A wreath of fennel wore.

Then in Life’s goblet freely press

The leaves that give it bitterness,

Nor prize the colored waters less,

For in thy darkness and distress

New light and strength they give.

For he who has not learned to know

How false its sparkling bubbles show,

How bitter are the drops of woe

With which its brim may overflow,

He has not learned to live!

The prayer of Ajax was for light!

Through all the dark and desperate fight,

The blackness of that noon-day night,

He asked but the return of sight

To know his foeman’s face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer

Be, too, for light:—and strength to bear

Our portion of the weight of care,

That crushes into dumb despair

One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!

O ye afflicted ones, who lie

Steeped to the lips in misery,

Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Ye have been sorely tried!

I pledge you in your cup of grief

Where floats the fennel’s bitter leaf!

The battle of our life is brief,—

The alarm,—the struggle,—the relief,—

Then sleep we side by side.

E. T. Parris. Rawdon, Wright, Hatch & Smillie.

Highland Beauty.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine