The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1903-11-12
Oh, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT
OF MORTAL BE PROUD?
WILLIAM KNOX.

1925, at the age of 36. Author of The
Lonely Hearth, Songs OF Israel, The
Harp of Zion, etc. His father was q
respectable yeoman, aud he himself
succeeding to good farms under the
Duke of Buccleuch, became too soon
his own master, and plunged into dissi
patton and ruin. His talent then
showed itself in fine strain of pen
sive poetry. Knox spent his later
years in Ed inburgh under his fathers
roof. and amidst all his errors was ad
m;rably faithful to the domestic af-
fection, kind and respectable son, and
an attached brother. The poem here
quoted was much admired by Abra-
ham Lincoln, who often repeated and
referred to it.
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal
be proud?
Like swift-feeting meteor, a fast-f1y-
ing cloud,
A flash of the lightning, break Of the
He passeth from life to his rest in the
&I6t0s
AS the young an3 the old, the low and
the high,
Shall crun.ble to dust and together
shall lie.
The leaves of tho oak and the willow
shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be
laid;
The infant a mother attended and
loved,
The motherithat infants affection who
proved.
The father that mother and infant who
Each, all, are away to that dwelling
The maid on whose brow, on whose
cheek, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure-hef
triumphs are by;
And alike ircn the minds OF Lying
erased
Are the memories of mortals who
loved her and praised.
The head of the king, that the sceptre
hath borne;
The brow OF the priest, that the mitre
bath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart OF
Are hidden and lost in the depths OF
the grave.
The peasant, whose lot was to SOW and
to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his
goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search
of his bread
Haye faded away like the grass that
we tread
So the multitude goes, like the flower
or weed,
That withers away to let others succeed
So the multitude comes, even thoee
we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often
been told.
For we are the same that our fathers
have been;
We see the same sights that our faith.
ers have seen;
We drink the same stream, and We
feel the same snn,
And run the same course that our
fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our
fathers did think;
From the death we are shrinking our
fathers did shrink;
To the life we are clinging our fathers
did cling,
But it speeds from Us all like bird on
the wing.
They loved-but the story We cannot
unfold;
1u0y SCUTuoU-Uut tuo u0dII VI VIC
naughty is cold;
They grieved-but no vail from their
slumbers will come
They joyed-but the tongues Of their
gladness is dumb;
They died-ah they died-we, things
that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over
their brow,
And make in their dwelling transient
abode,
Meet the things that they met ea their
pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and dependency, pleasure
and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and
rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the
song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon
surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye; tits the
draught of breath
From the blossom of health to tbs
paleness of death,
From the. ..gilded saloon to the bier and
the shroud
O, why should the spirit OF mortal b
! md