Have Patience

The goblets all are broken,
The pleasant wine is spilt,
The songs cease. If thou wilt,
Listen, and hear truth spoken.
We take thought for the morrow,
And know not we shall see it ;
We look on death with sorrow,
And cannot flee it.
Youth passes like the lightning,
Not to return again,—
Just for a little bright’ning
The confines of a plain,
Gilding the spires, and whitening
The gravestones and the slain.
Youth passes like the odour
From the white rose’s cup
When the hot sun drinks up
The dew that overflowed her :
Then life forsakes the petals
That had been very fair ;
No beauty lingers there,
And no bee settles.
But, when the rose is dead
And the leaves fallen,
And when the earth has spread
A snow-white pall on,
The thorn remains, once hidden
By the green growth above it—
A darksome guest unbidden.
With none to love it.
Manhood is turbulent,
And old age tires ;
That hath no still content,
This no desires.
The present hath even less
Joy than the past,
And more cares fret it :—
Life is a weariness
From first to last ;—
Let us forget it.
Fill high and deep !—But how ?
The goblets all are broken.
Nay then, have patience now :
For this is but a token
We soon shall have no need
Of such to cheer us;
The palm-branches decreed