SPIRIT, proud spirit, O ponder thy state,
If thine the leaf’s lightness, not thine the leaf’s fate;
It may flutter and glisten, and wither and die;
And heed not our pity and ask not our sigh;
But for thee, the immortal, no winter may throw
Eternal repose on thy joy and thy woe;
Thou must live―live forever―in glory, or gloom,
Beyond the world’s precincts―beyond the dark tomb,
Look to thyself, then―ere past is hope’s reign,
And looking and longing alike are in vain;
Lest thou deem it a bliss to have been, or to be,
But a fluttering leaf on you blasted, de ad tree.
J.