Death grows beside existence, and with time
Is comrade of its changes; cycles roll
Their heavy circles through the human soul,
And pour their dirges into mournful rhyme;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!

He gropes in shadows for a happy beam
That shall delight his bosom; into mist
Dissolves the substance that ambition kissed,
While greatness grows the garland of a dream;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!

Endeavor struggles to an open grave;
The past is lost in monumental dust,
Where age on age in angry ire has thrust
The wise, the strong, the mighty, and the brave;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!

The years are shades that totter from their tombs,
The ages, ghosts that live in catacombs
And lure the Present to their awful homes,
Where ancient races wander in the glooms;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!

Oblivion welcomes men with gentle arms,
And presses them like infants to her breast,
Repeats to them her lullabies of rest,
And guards them from all sorrows and alarms;
A birth, a life, a death; man is no more!