English poem
ON ANY BEACH — BY M. A.
by Andrew Lang
Yes, in the stream and stress of things, That breaks around us like the sea, There comes to Peasants and to Kings, The solemn Hour of Jubilee. If they, till strenuous Nature give Some fifty harvests, chance to live!
Ah, Fifty harvests! But the corn Is grown beside the barren main, Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borne Across the green unvintaged plain. And life, lived out for fifty years, Is briny with the spray of tears!
Ah, such is Life, to us that live Here, in the twilight of the Gods, Who weigh each gift the world can give, And sigh and murmur, What's the odds So long's you're happy? Nay, what Man Finds Happiness since Time began?