MORTALITY

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 13, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 15.

[The words and sentiment of these lines are so touching and so true that I send them for republication in the REVIEW. P. M. C.]

This poem, which was so great a favorite with President Lincoln that he committed it to memory, was written by a Scotch clergyman named William Knox, who was born in 1789, and died in Edinburgh in 1829.

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud; A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The child whom a mother attended and loved; The mother, that infant’s affection who proved; The husband, that mother and infant who blessed; Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.

The maid, on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king who the scepter hath borne; The brow of the priest who the mitre hath worn; The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman, who climbed with his goats to the steep, The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread; Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of Heaven, The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed That wither away, to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we’re the same things that our fathers have been; We see the same sights that our fathers have seen— We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun— And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking, they, too, would shrink; To the life we are clinging, they, too, would cling, But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but their story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumber may come; They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died; aye, they died; and we, things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope, and despondency, pleasures and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge after surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud— Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?