Each day that slays its hours and dies
Weeps, laughs, and lightens on our eyes,
And sees and hears not: smiles and sighs
As flowers ephemeral fall and rise
⁠About its birth, about its way,
And pass as love and sorrow pass,
As shadows flashing down a glass,
As dew-flowers blowing in flowerless grass,
⁠As hope from yesterday.

The blossom of the sunny dew
That now the stronger sun strikes through
Fades off the blade whereon it blew
No fleetlier than the flowers that grew
⁠On hope's green stem in life's fierce light.
Nor might the glory soon to sit
Awhile on Balen's crest alit
Outshine the shadow of doom on it
⁠Or stay death's wings from flight.