The Goblet of Life

6No purple flowers, — no garlands green,

7Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,

8Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,

9Like gleams of sunshine, flash between

10Thick leaves of mistletoe.

11This goblet, wrought with curious art,

12Is filled with waters, that upstart,

13When the deep fountains of the heart,

14By strong convulsions rent apart,

15Are running all to waste.

16And as it mantling passes round,

17With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,

18Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned

19Are in its waters steeped and drowned,

20And give a bitter taste.

21Above the lowly plants it towers,

22The fennel, with its yellow flowers,

23And in an earlier age than ours

24Was gifted with the wondrous powers,

25Lost vision to restore.

26It gave new strength, and fearless mood;

27And gladiators, fierce and rude,

28Mingled it in their daily food;

29And he who battled and subdued,

30A wreath of fennel wore.

31Then in Life's goblet freely press,

32The leaves that give it bitterness,

33Nor prize the colored waters less,

34For in thy darkness and distress

35New light and strength they give!

36And he who has not learned to know

37How false its sparkling buhbles show,

38How bitter are the drops of woe,

39With which its brim may overflow,

40He has not learned to live.

41The prayer of Ajax was for light;

42Through all that dark and desperate fight

43The blackness of that noonday night

44He asked but the return of sight,

45To see his foeman's face.

46Let our unceasing, earnest prayer

47Be, too, for light, — for strength to bear

48Our portion of the weight of care,

49That crushes into dumb despair

50One half the human race.

51O suffering, sad humanity!

52O ye afflicted one; who lie

53Steeped to the lips in misery,

54Longing, and yet afraid to die,

55Patient, though sorely tried !

56I pledge you in this cup of grief,

57Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf !

58The Battle of our Life is briet

59The alarm, — the struggle, — the relief,

60Then sleep we side by side.