Excerpt from Benigna Vena: Essays, Literary and Personal Dear God! The struggle through barren years, The hope deferred and the waiting long, And for a. Guerdon of all their tears, A briefer date than an idle song. For not to these do the heights belong, Where the throned bards made glad acclaim, But C'haron's curse and his bitter thong Back to the night from whence they came. For this they bartered their earthly peace, And let the sweetness of life go by; Nor recked while they saw the moons decrease, And the tides of being run scant and dry Yea, even when Death himself drew nigh, Him would they welcome, nor harshly blame, Seeing the Portal of Victory Back to the night from whence they came! Tell me, ye dupes of an empty dream, Is life no more than a pedant's hour, To spoil of paper a hasty ream, Then quick to bed with the earth-worm dour? Eheu! Mislikes me your sermon sour, With its bellman's ending, aye the same Fain would I take at least a flower Back to the night from whence I came. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.