YOZGAD IV: HOW LIKE AN OCEAN IS EXISTENCE HERE - Oliver Goldsmith Poems

 
 

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YOZGAD IV: HOW LIKE AN OCEAN IS EXISTENCE HERE


How like an ocean is existence here,
Whose waves are days and moving follow on;
Each seventh wave looms larger than the rest,
As Sabbaths mark the passing of the weeks:
Each wave's uplift is as the rise of day,
And lifted high we look around and find
Nor ship, nor shore, nor bound, but only sky;
Then to the trough of night the day descends,
As the wave sweeps from under plunging down,
And passes onward leaving us still here.
So the waves pass, while we remain like hulks
Whose means of self-propulsion are all gone
That once rejoiced to chase them passing by.
Thus derelict we lie, time passes on,
And we shall see nor home, nor friend, nor love,
'Til, as the tides of ocean cast their dead
Spewed forth among the jetsam of the shore,
We too return, -- the flotsam of the war.
So now heave-to my argosy and bear
Thee up into the eye of this chill wind,
And like a skilled experienced mariner
I'll now ride out the storm of this vile war.