Our lives are into cycles cast,
They seem to linger while they last,
But are dim dreamings when they're past.
The summers of the past have left
No traces,-rolling years have cleft
All memories,-of all signs bereft.
All melted are the winter snows,
And where they perished, whence they rose,
No now-existing record shows.
And yet there reigns eternal Law,
And seasons after seasons draw
Their lines without a fault or flaw.
So man, the noblest work of God,
Treads where his vanished fathers trod,
And views the skies and turns the sod.
Where'er he looks, above, around,
Scattered o'er earth's prolific ground
The seeds of coming man are found.
It was so-is so-so shall be
While rolls the ever-flowing sea
Into thy gulf, Eternity!