The sun, sweet girl, hath run his year-long race Through the vast nothing of the eternal sky -- Since the glad hearing of the first faint cry Announced a stranger from the unknown place Of unborn souls. How blank was then the face, How uninformed the weak light-shunning eye, That wept and saw not. Poor mortality Begins to mourn before it knows its case, Prophetic in its ignorance. But soon The hospitalities of earth engage The banished spirit in its new exile -- Pass some few changes of the fickle moon, The merry babe has learned its mother's smile, Its father's frown, its nurse's mimic rage. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BETRAND AND GOURGAUD TALK OVER OLD TIMES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO HIS MISTRESS OBJECTING TO HIM NEITHER TOYING OR TALKING by ROBERT HERRICK FLOWERS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ON GROWING OLD by JOHN MASEFIELD THE OLD BURYING-GROUND by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER THE MOUNTAIN ECHO by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH WESTERN MORNING by WILLIMINA L. ARMSTRONG |