To spring, to bloom, to fade,
This is the sum of the laborious years ;
Life preludes death as laughter ends in tears :
All things that God has made
Suffer perpetual change, and may not long endure.

We alter day by day ;
Each little moment, as life's current rolls,
Stamps some faint impress on our yielding souls ;
We may not rest nor stay,
Drifting on tides unseen to one dread goal and sure.

Our being is compassed round
With miracles ; on this our life-long sleep,
Strange whispers rise from the surrounding deep,
Like that weird ocean sound
Borne in still summer nights on weary watching ears.

The selves we leave behind
Affright us like the ghosts of friends long dead ;
The old love vanished in the present dread,
They visit us to find
New sorrows, alien hopes, strange pleasures, other fears.