WHY SAD TO-DAY?

Why is the nameless sorrowing look

So often thought a whim?

God-willed, the willow shades the brook,

The gray owl sings a hymn;

Sadly the winds change, and the rain

Comes where the sunlight fell:

Sad is our story, told again,

Which past years told so well!

Why not love sorrow and the glance

That ends in silent tears?

If we count up the world's mischance,

Grieving is in arrears.

Why should I know why I could weep?

The old urns cannot read

The names they wear of kings they keep

In ashes; both are dead.

And like an urn the heart must hold

Aims of an age gone by:

What the aims were we are not told;

We hold them, who knows why?