RANDOM THOUGHTS
Written by Sir Tollemache Sinclair.
Who knows not the glance cold and listless, The seared heart and dissonant voice, The limp hand which could not be missed less, In this sad world we scarce have a choice, In their dull eyes no gleam or ovation, Art or wonders of Nature excite.
E'en wit needs the knife's operation, To their indolent minds to give sight.
They awake, they arise, dress and wander. To dinner return, and then snore.
They gossip, kill time, and gold squander, Banish thought, crush all feeling, and bore. « 'Tis a wise son who knows his own father». Some daughters their mothers disown.
If not in their set, and would rather See them dead, and pretend them to moan. How vainly we strive for affection, Love or gold can't earn the least part, Ingratitude's seen in perfection.
The independence it is of the heart.
Marriage is a mere matter of money, To which good and bad matches bow, You're caught like a fly by sham honey, But your cash buys the girl's spurious vow. Do not gulp down the rare cup of pleasure, Relish amply each sip from the top.
Eternity's too short a leisure.
Of Love's chalice to drain the last drop. Can we of both worlds take the honey.
Or only of one it secure.
The God of this world is mere money, In the next let's hope joy to procure. On the stage the great actor's a hero, His soul then attains the sublime, But, when off, there's reaction to zero. To the real he sinks for a lime.
And so on earth's stage we're oft striving, Ideals we love to fulfil, But when baffled, our projects not thri\1ng, We sink to the base of life's hill.
Time spares not what man does without it. But seldom what with it is done.
When our frame sleeps death's silence about it, What boots laurels lost then or won ?
The traveller in deserts, whilst weary.
In fancy views lakes, grass, and trees, The place reached, his hopes, once so cheery, Are cheated, sand only he sees.
And so midst life's desert so cheerless. Dear woman we ask for love's bread.
But when we would snatch the prize peerless, Stony hearts we oft find there instead. Do not hope, do not seek for love's harvest,
But glean on, though thy heart oft thee fails, Grieve not if on mere stalks thou starvest, Many a one never loved dread Death hails. During life, if of love but one jewel, E'en though scarcely a visible spark Be thine, think not Destiny cruel.
To most men life's gloomy and dark.
The Greeks realized the ideal.
In religion, in art, on the stage, We idealize but the real, Now only this method's the rage.
To a doctor an actor was saying, « My sadness I cannot endure »
He answered : « Go see Liston playing », « 'I'm Liston', quoth he, 'there's no cure'. » The tears which some shed, while life's lasting, Might drown them if none were e'er lost. The smiles which so seldom we're casting. Are oft forced, as we know, to our cost. Dante said than this world hell is better,. ' What star is not happier than ours. Less drear are the ills which us fetter, Than the tedium which all of us sours. Is music a means of ensnaring Our sympathies on false pretence ?
Like parrots can cold hearts ne'er caring, Appeal not to soul, but to sense ?
Says Lessing : « On earth we're still finding But one bad spouse under the sun. »
The pity is he's us reminding To each his own wife is that one.
Ah ! woman, how long your hair tumbles. How short your ideas, alas !
When married, at fate one oft grumbles. And writes oneself then down an ass.
How many volcanoes, now slumbering, Lie smothered in dark human breasts, What fell hates our hours are oft numbering, Though we seem much diverted by jests.
Is language in animals wanting ? The sounds they emit mean they naught ? And birds, to their mates sweetly chaunting, Don't they say that love has them brought ? Themistocles, asked to remember, Expressing most poignant regret.
Said when he'd reached life's drear December : « Rather teach, if thou can'st, to forget. » Ah ! who, when fell Death has bereaved him, Mourns not with deep pangs of regret, Nor feels how much less Fate had grieved him, If in life he had loved friends more yet.
