FILLED is Life’s goblet to the brim; | |
| And though my eyes with tears are dim, | |
| I see its sparkling bubbles swim, | |
| And chant a melancholy hymn | |
| With solemn voice and slow. | 5 |
| |
| No purple flowers,—no garlands green, | |
| Conceal the goblet’s shade or sheen, | |
| Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene, | |
| Like gleams of sunshine, flash between | |
| Thick leaves of mistletoe. | 10 |
| |
| This goblet, wrought with curious art, | |
| Is filled with waters, that upstart, | |
| When the deep fountains of the heart, | |
| By strong convulsions rent apart, | |
| Are running all to waste. | 15 |
| |
| 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. | 20 |
| |
| Above the lowly 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. | 25 |
| |
| 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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! | 35 |
| |
| And 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. | 40 |
| |
| The prayer of Ajax was for light; | |
| Through all that dark and desperate fight, | |
| The blackness of that noonday night, | |
| He asked but the return of sight, | |
| To see his foeman’s face. | 45 |
| |
| Let our unceasing, earnest prayer | |
| Be, too, for light,—for strength to bear | |
| Our portion of the weight of care, | |
| That crushes into dumb despair | |
| One half the human race. | 50 |
| |
| O suffering, sad humanity! | |
| O ye afflicted ones, who lie | |
| Steeped to the lips in misery, | |
| Longing, and yet afraid to die, | |
| Patient, though sorely tried! | 55 |
| |
| I pledge you in this 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. | 60 |
| |
