Dear child of joy, who read thy soul shall find,
That all things shifting, man must vary too;
Sometimes in thunder, earthquake, and in wind,
Nature will mourn, so grief her sons should woo;
But when the winning breeze coys with the sail,
That bears thy bark along the flowing wave;
Then, know, perfection lives not in the pale
Of that small space, where thy mad fancies rave:
If there’s no happiness, then conquer time,
And grandly dare to build, scorning blind Fate;
Fate lives enshrined within the spirit sublime,
Which o’er a faltering world asserts its weight.
Let fools of circumstance wither and yield,
Some in themselves foster the fate they wield.