We All Do Perish Like the Leaf
One rosy cloud lay cradled
In the chambers of the sky;
Rock’d gently by the autumn winds,
As they came sighing by;
Touching, oh, so lightly,
Each leaf on ev’ry tree,
Yet wafting them in tinted show’rs,
O’er mountain, hill, and lee.
For autumn’s chilling finger
Has touch’d them, by decay;
And now the slightest zephyr’s wing
Bears their frail form away:
And strews them o’er the barren glebe,
In withered heaps to lie
The sport of many a wintry storm,
As it comes surging by.
So man, with earthly honor,
Stands proudly forth, to-day,—
To-morrow Death’s untimely frost
His glory sweeps away.
And down in Death’s dark chambers,
With folded hands he lies;
The things of earth excluded
Forever from his eyes.