George Meredith 1828-1909
SORROWS AND JOYS
Bury thy sorrows, and they shall rise
As souls to the immortal skies,
And there look down like mothers’ eyes.
But let thy joys be fresh as flowers,
That suck the honey of the showers,
And bloom alike on huts and towers.
So shall thy days be sweet and bright;
Solemn and sweet thy starry night,
Conscious of love each change of light.
The stars will watch the flowers asleep,
The flowers will feel the soft stars weep,
And both will mix sensations deep.
With these below, with those above,
Sits evermore the brooding dove,
Uniting both in bonds of love.
For both by nature are akin;
Sorrow, the ashen fruit of sin,
And joy, the juice of life within.
Children of earth are these; and those
The spirits of divine repose –
Death radiant o’er all human woes.
O, think what then had been thy doom,
If homeless and without a tomb
They had been left to haunt the gloom!
O, think again what now they are –
Motherly love, tho’ dim and far,
Imaged in every lustrous star.
For they, in their salvation, know
No vestige of their former woe,
While thro’ them all the heavens do flow.
Thus art thou wedded to the skies,
And watched by ever-loving eyes,
And warned by yearning sympathies.