UNCERTAINTY.

Oh dread uncertainty!

Life-wasting agony!

How dost thou pain the heart,

Causing such tears to start,

As sorrow never shed

O'er hopes for ever fled.

For memory hoards up joy

Beyond Time's dull alloy;

Pleasures that once have been

Shed light upon the scene,

As setting suns fling back

A bright and glowing track,

To show they once have cast

A glory o'er the past;

But thou, tormenting fiend,

Beneath Hope's pinions screened,

Leagued with distrust and pain,

Makest her promise vain;

Weaving in life's fair crown

Thistles instead of down.

Who would not rather know

Present than coming woe?

For certain sorrow brings

A healing in its wings.

The softening touch of years

Still dries the mourner's tears;

For human minds inherit

A gay, elastic spirit,

Which rises in the hour

Of trial, with such power,

That men, with wonder, find

Sorrow is less unkind;

That human hearts can bear

All evils but despair,

Or that anticipated grief

Which, for a season, mocks relief.

Uncertainty still clings

To earth's fair but fleeting things;

And mortals vainly trust

In fabrics formed of dust!

We look into life's waste,

And tread its paths in haste;

The past — for ever flown;

The present — scarce our own;

While, cold and dim, before

Stretches the shadowy shore,

The dark futurity, which lies

Beyond the glance of mortal eyes,

Wrapped in the mystic gloom

Which canopies the tomb.

But faith can pour a light

On the spirit's earthly night,

And break that sullen shroud;

As a star bursts through the cloud,

To show the upward eye

The clear, but distant, sky;

The land of joy and peace,

Where doubts and sorrows cease.