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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=386657" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Epochs</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The epochs of our life are not in the facts, but in the<br>silent thought by the wayside as we walk.'-Emerson</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I. Youth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,<br>Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,<br>Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,<br>That each dark copse and hollow overfills;<br>The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,<br>Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,<br>A murmur and a singing manifold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The gray, austere old earth renews her youth<br>With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.<br>How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,<br>While all is fresh as in the early days!<br>What simple things be these the soul to raise<br>To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,<br>With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On such a golden morning forth there floats,<br>Between the soft earth and the softer sky,<br>In the warm air adust with glistening motes,<br>The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,<br>A human soul, that hovers giddily<br>Among the gardens of earth's paradise,<br>Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II. Regret.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,<br>Reddening the road and deepening the green<br>On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;<br>Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between<br>These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen<br>But dimly on the far horizon's edge.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,<br>Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun<br>Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,<br>No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,<br>No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone<br>Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Only a tender, unnamed half-regret<br>For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;<br>A yearning aspiration, fainter yet,<br>For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,<br>Now while brief showers ruffle grass and corn,<br>And all the earth lies shadowed, grave, and wet;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Space for the happy soul to pause again<br>From pure content of all unbroken bliss,<br>To dream the future void of grief and pain,<br>And muse upon the past, in reveries<br>More sweet for knowledge that the present is<br>Not all complete, with mist and clouds and rain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III. Longing.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,<br>Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold<br>Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,<br>Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,<br>In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,<br>Floating like dreams, and melting silently,<br>In the blue upper regions of pure sky.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart<br>Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;<br>And yet at such an hour as this, upstart<br>Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,<br>And causeless tears from melancholy mood,<br>Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,<br>Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV. Storm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,<br>But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud<br>Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare<br>At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.<br>Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;<br>The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead<br>Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,<br>Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.<br>Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below<br>Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,<br>Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,<br>Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,<br>Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,<br>Within the hollow circle of the hills,<br>With gathering might, that angry echoes wakes,<br>And earth and heaven with unused clamor fills.<br>O'erhead still flame those strange electric thrills.<br>A moment more,-behold! yon bolt struck home,<br>And over ruined fields the storm hath come!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V. Surprise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes<br>On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,<br>Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise<br>Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,<br>With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,<br>Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?<br>Is this the world that yesterday was fair?<br>What painted images of folk half-blind<br>Be these who pass her by, as vague as air?<br>What go they seeking? there is naught to find.<br>Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A mocking lie is all she once believed,<br>And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.<br>This is a doom we never preconceived,<br>Yet now she cannot fancy it undone.<br>Part of herself, part of the whole hard scheme,<br>All else is but the shadow of a dream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI. Grief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is a hungry longing in the soul,<br>A craving sense of emptiness and pain,<br>She may not satisfy nor yet control,<br>For all the teeming world looks void and vain.<br>No compensation in eternal spheres,<br>She knows the loneliness of all her years.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is no comfort looking forth nor back,<br>The present gives the lie to all her past.<br>Will cruel time restore what she doth lack?<br>Why was no shadow of this doom forecast?<br>Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing;<br>Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the unnatural glory of the hour,<br>Exalted over time, and death, and fate,<br>No earthly task appears beyond her power,<br>No possible endurance seemeth great.<br>She knows her misery and her majesty,<br>And recks not if she be to live or die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII. Acceptance.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,<br>And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.<br>This silence is not patience, nor the grace<br>Of recognition, meekly offered up,<br>But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,<br>Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her future clear and terrible outlies,-<br>This burden to be borne through all her days,<br>This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes,<br>This weight of trouble she may never raise.<br>No reconcilement doth she ask nor wait;<br>Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No brave endeavor of the broken will<br>To cling to such poor stays as will abide<br>(Although the waves be wild and angry still)<br>After the lapsing of the swollen tide.<br>No fear of further loss, no hope of gain,<br>Naught but the apathy of weary pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VIII. Loneliness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All stupor of surprise hath passed away;<br>She sees, with clearer vision than before,<br>A world far off of light and laughter gay,<br>Herself alone and lonely evermore.<br>Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,<br>Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All outward things, that once seemed part of her,<br>Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.<br>She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh,<br>With the heart eaten out, a long time dead;<br>Unchanged without, the features and the form;<br>Within, devoured by the thin red worm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">By her own prowess she must stand or fall,<br>This grief is to be conquered day by day.<br>Who could befriend her? who could make this small,<br>Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.<br>A weary struggle and a constant pain,<br>She dreams not they may ever cease nor wane.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IX. Sympathy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,<br>Else might she still have clung to her despair.<br>More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,<br>Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,<br>And gentle words borne softly through the air,<br>Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,<br>By welcome, dear communion with her kind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;<br>What speech could help, encourage, or repair?<br>Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,<br>Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,<br>Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare<br>To compensate or mend, but merely soothe<br>With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,<br>To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,<br>The misery of the blank and heavy eyes,-<br>Or through youth's infinite compassion guessed<br>The heavy burden,-such a one brought rest,<br>And bade her lay aside her doubts and fears,<br>While the hard pain dissolved in blessed tears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>X. Patience.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The passion of despair is quelled at last;<br>The cruel sense of undeserved wrong,<br>The wild self-pity, these are also past;<br>She knows not what may come, but she is strong;<br>She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,<br>Her patience is the essence of all pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,<br>She sees the flow of changeless day by day,<br>Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream,<br>Nor cares how soon the waters slip away,<br>Nor where they lead; at the wise God's decree,<br>She will depart or bide indifferently.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There is deeper pathos in the mild<br>And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes,<br>Than in the tumults of the anguish wild,<br>That made her curse all things beneath the skies;<br>No question, no reproaches, no complaint,<br>Hers is the holy calm of some meek saint.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XI. Hope.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her languid pulses thrill with sudden hope,<br>That will not be forgot nor cast aside,<br>And life in statelier vistas seems to ope,<br>Illimitably lofty, long, and wide.<br>What doth she know? She is subdued and mild,<br>Quiet and docile 'as a weaned child.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If grief came in such unimagined wise,<br>How may joy dawn? In what undreamed-of hour,<br>May the light break with splendor of surprise,<br>Disclosing all the mercy and the power?<br>A baseless hope, yet vivid, keen, and bright,<br>As the wild lightning in the starless night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She knows not whence it came, nor where it passed,<br>But it revealed, in one brief flash of flame,<br>A heaven so high, a world so rich and vast,<br>That, full of meek contrition and mute shame,<br>In patient silence hopefully withdrawn,<br>She bows her head, and bides the certain dawn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XII. Compensation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'T is not alone that black and yawning void<br>That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,<br>But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,<br>The lost delight may never come again.<br>Yet myriad serious blessings with grave grace<br>Arise on every side to fill their place.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For much abides in her so lonely life,-<br>The dear companionship of her own kind,<br>Love where least looked for, quiet after strife,<br>Whispers of promise upon every wind,<br>A quickened insight, in awakened eyes,<br>For the new meaning of the earth and skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The nameless charm about all things hath died,<br>Subtle as aureole round a shadow's head,<br>Cast on the dewy grass at morning-tide;<br>Yet though the glory and the joy be fled,<br>'T is much her own endurance to have weighed,<br>And wrestled with God's angels, unafraid.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIII. Faith.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She feels outwearied, as though o'er her head<br>A storm of mighty billows broke and passed.<br>Whose hand upheld her? Who her footsteps led<br>To this green haven of sweet rest at last?<br>What strength was hers, unreckoned and unknown?<br>What love sustained when she was most alone?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Unutterably pathetic her desire,<br>To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer,<br>Something to cling to, to uplift her higher<br>From this low world of coward fear and care,<br>Above disaster, that her will may be<br>At one with God's, accepting his decree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though by no reasons she be justified,<br>Yet strangely brave in Evil's very face,<br>She deems this want must needs be satisfied,<br>Though here all slips from out her weak embrace.<br>And in blind ecstasy of perfect faith,<br>With her own dream her prayer she answereth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XIV. Work.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,<br>But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.<br>After the first compassion, none will spare<br>Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.<br>She pleads for respite,-she will come ere long<br>When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by<br>Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.<br>Much must be done before the brief light die;<br>She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.<br>With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,<br>She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But when she fills her days with duties done,<br>Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.<br>New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,<br>And life still holds for her unbounded wealth.<br>All that seemed hard and toilsome now proves small,<br>And naught may daunt her,-she hath strength for all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XV. Victory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How strange, in some brief interval of rest,<br>Backward to look on her far-stretching past.<br>To see how much is conquered and repressed,<br>How much is gained in victory at last!<br>The shadow is not lifted,-but her faith,<br>Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,<br>Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed<br>In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one<br>New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.<br>She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,<br>And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;<br>The struggle has been toilsome to this end,<br>Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,<br>And all will be atoned with him to friend.<br>Much must be reconciled, much justified,<br>And yet she feels she will be satisfied.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>XVI. Peace.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The calm outgoing of a long, rich day,<br>Checkered with storm and sunshine, gloom and light,<br>Now passing in pure, cloudless skies away,<br>Withdrawing into silence of blank night.<br>Thick shadows settle on the landscape bright,<br>Like the weird cloud of death that falls apace<br>On the still features of the passive face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Soothing and gentle as a mother's kiss,<br>The touch that stopped the beating of the heart.<br>A look so blissfully serene as this,<br>Not all the joy of living could impart.<br>With dauntless faith and courage therewithal,<br>The Master found her ready at his call.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">On such a golden evening forth there floats,<br>Between the grave earth and the glowing sky<br>In the clear air, unvexed with hazy motes,<br>The mystic-winged and flickering butterfly,<br>A human soul, that drifts at liberty,<br>Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise,<br>To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies.!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Emma+Lazarus">Emma Lazarus</a><div class=q>
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silent thought by the wayside as we walk.'-Emerson


I. Youth.

Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and..."></div>
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