Why is it we grasp at the shadow
That flits from us swift as thought,
While the real that maketh the shadow
Stands in our way unsought?
And why do we wonder, and wonder,
What's beyond the hill-tops of thought?
Why is it the things that we sigh for
Are the things that we never can reach?
Why, only the sternest experience
A lession of patience can teach?
And why hold we so careless and lightly
The treasures that are in our reach?
Why is it we wait for the future,
Or dwell on the scenes of the past,
Rather than live in the present
Hastening from us so fast?
Why is it the prizes we toil for,
So tempting in fancy's mould cast,
Prove, when to our lips we have pressed them,
Only dead-sea apples at last?
And why are the crowns, and the crosses,
So wondrous inequally classed?
Ask it, ye, over and over,
Let the winds waft your question on high,
Till memory wanes with the ages,
Till the stars in eternity die.
And out from the bloom and the sunshine,
From the rainbow o'erarching the sky,
From the night and the gloom and the tempest,
Echo will answer you, “Why?”