LIFE'S CURTAIN by EMMA MAGIN BISSELL

Gently it lifts --
And a world of surprise;
With a beautiful, great golden dawn,
Greets our eyes.
Dependent and helpless,
In wonder we gaze;
As the moon plays its part,
In our babyhood days;
But life has its purpose,
And from the very start
This great world expects us,
To live well our part.

Still higher it rises --
On the mysteries of life;
Where snugly wrapped about its portals,
Fair beauty lies as well as strife.
With their comrades joy and sorrow,
And laughter gay, 'mid blooming flow'rs;
Where youth's dreams are won or shattered,
While Time, the accountant, marks the hours;
As little by little, without warning or fuss,
Like the tides of the ocean, they are sure to leave us;
And this curtain that lifted before our eyes like a rose,
Is the same one which falls when in death they close.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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