We twain have met like the ships upon the sea,1 Who hold an hours converse, so short, so sweet; One little hour! And then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist and cloud and foam, To meet no more.
We hear the wail of the remorseful winds In their strange penance. And this wretched orb Knows not the taste of rest; a maniac world, Homeless and sobbing through the deep she goes.
The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night; The one has music and the flying cloud, The other, silence and the wakeful stars.
In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place to-day, it is vain to seek it there to-morrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
City Poem: The Fear of Dying.
Note 1. Longfellow: The Theologians Tale: Elizabeth, page 644. Thomas Moore: The Meeting of the Ships, page 644, note. Edward Bulwer-Lytton: A Lament, page 631. [back]