The Silken Tassel/Adam’s Heirs
Adam’s Heirs
To what great depths have fallen Adam’s heirs!
The heights of Life’s true beauty, ah! no more
To them are visible; beside the shore
Of treacherous gloom, they grope, ’midst aching cares,
The heights of Life’s true beauty, ah! no more
To them are visible; beside the shore
Of treacherous gloom, they grope, ’midst aching cares,
Self-poised, like insects, in the muddy snares
Of greed and ignorance, where every door
To Love and Light seems closed, and all the lore
Of hoarded heavens with them no pleasure shares.
Of greed and ignorance, where every door
To Love and Light seems closed, and all the lore
Of hoarded heavens with them no pleasure shares.
And yet there is a gleam of hidden light,
That flashes on their souls betimes, and shows
The chasten’d stairs of Duty, whereon Life
That flashes on their souls betimes, and shows
The chasten’d stairs of Duty, whereon Life
May take them swifter than an angel’s flight:
Could they but know their soul-betraying strife
And God within them budding like a rose!
Could they but know their soul-betraying strife
And God within them budding like a rose!