The Worth and Majesty
of this Brief Span of Earth
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Life is a privilege. Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.[1]
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions – in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling – God! [2] in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!
Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!
Life is a privilege. Though the noontide fades
And shadows fall along the winding glades,
Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air,
Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,
And in the serious hours of life we find
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth
And majesty to this brief span of earth.
Life is a privilege. If some sad fate
Sends us alone to seek the exit gate,
If men forsake us and as shadows fall,
Still does the supreme privilege of all
Come in that reaching upward of the soul
To find the welcoming Presence at the goal,
And in the Knowledge that our feet have trod
Paths that led from, and must wind back, to God. [3]
NOTES:
[1] “Mays” – plural form of May, the month that is a symbol of springtime in the Northern hemisphere. (CCA)
[2] In esoteric philosophy, the word “God” means the universal and sacred Law, impersonally present in everyone’s heart.
[3] Back to the origin and to the essence, to the Law, to the eternal cyclic Life. (CCA)
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The above poem is included in the associated websites as an independent publication on 21 November 2019. It is reproduced from the book “Poems of Power”, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Gay and Hancock, Ltd, London, 1905, 164 pp., see pp. 157-158. Also published at the August 2018 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pp. 5-6.
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Click and see other writings by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Examine our collection of philosophical prayers and poems.
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