Few are thy days, and full of woe,
O man of wo­man born!
Thy doom is writ­ten, Dust thou art,
And shalt to dust re­turn.

Determined are the days that fly
Successive o’er thy head;
The num­bered hour is on the wing,
That lays thee with the dead.

Alas! the lit­tle day of life
Is short­er than a span;
Yet black with thou­sand hid­den ills
To mi­se­ra­ble man.

Gay is thy morn­ing; flat­ter­ing hope
Thy spright­ly step at­tends;
But soon the tem­pest howls behind,
And then dark night des­cends.

Before its splen­did hour, the cloud
Comes o’er the beam of light:
A pil­grim in a wea­ry land,
Man tar­ries but a night.

Behold! sad em­blem of thy state,
The flow­ers that paint the field;
Or trees, that crown the mount­ain’s brow,
And boughs and blos­soms yield.

When chill the blast of win­ter blows,
Away the sum­mer flies,
The flow­ers re­sign their sun­ny robes,
And all their beau­ty dies.

Nipped by the year, the for­est fades;
And, shak­ing to the wind,
The leaves toss to and fro, and streak
The wil­der­ness behind.

The win­ter past, re­viv­ing flow­ers
Anew shall paint the plain;
The woods shall hear the voice of spring,
And flour­ish green again:

But man de­parts this earth­ly scene,
Ah! ne­ver to re­turn!
No se­cond spring shall e’er re­vive
The ash­es of the urn.

The in­ex­or­able doors of death,
What hand can e’er un­fold?
Who from the ce­re­ments of the tomb
Can raise the hu­man mould?

The migh­ty flood that rolls along
Its tor­rents to the main,
The wa­ters lost can ne’er re­call
From that abyss again.

The days, the years, the ag­es, dark
Descending down to night,
Can ne­ver, ne­ver be re­deemed
Back to the gates of light.

So man de­parts the liv­ing scene,
To night’s per­pe­tu­al gloom;
The voice of morn­ing ne’er shall break
The slum­bers of the tomb.

Where are our fa­thers? whi­ther gone
The migh­ty men of old?
The pa­tri­archs, pro­phets, princ­es, kings,
In sac­red books en­rolled?

Gone to the rest­ing place of man,
The ev­er­last­ing home,
Where ag­es past have gone before,
Where fu­ture ag­es come.

Thus Nature poured the wail of woe,
And urged her ear­nest cry;
Her voice in ago­ny ex­treme
Ascended to the sky.

The Al­migh­ty heard; then from His throne
In ma­jes­ty He rose;
And from the heav’n, that op­ened wide,
His voice in mer­cy flows.

“When mor­tal man re­signs his breath,
And falls a clod of clay,
The soul im­mor­tal wings its flight
To ne­ver set­ting day.

Pre­pared of old for wick­ed men
The bed of tor­ment lies;
The just shall en­ter in­to bliss
Immortal in the skies.