The Lament of Libanius

Two things I view with ever keen surprise — Enduring nature and mankind that dies. The quenchless lamps that nightly radiance strew See not their light and know not what they do: Streams in unhasting and unresting flow Make joyless sport, — yet change to envious woe Our envied mirth: the everlasting hills, Like giant mummies, feign to mock our ill; They counterfeit to see, with sightless eye, Our pigmy generations live and die: While we, alas, though fashioned in the womb, Cast longing gaze bepond our night of doom To that eternal dawn unshadowed by the tomb. We gaze, we strain our eyes, we seem to see That — barren hills are less and more than we! To think, like man, and yet, like nature, to abide, — This double boon to man and nature is denied; This boon the gods enjoy and give to none beside.