To Find the Key

AN hour of joy, a day of tears,A lesson in life’s changeful school,A dream of happy fleeting years,A mad plunge in the whirling pool,A sail upon the waves which flowUnto the hidden mystic seaWherein we sink! And then we goTo try the lock and find the key.

A day of toil, an hour of rest,A week of faith, a year of doubt,A little while on Friendship’s breast,Then mingling with the selfish rout,A flutter on Ambition’s wings,An earnest longing to be freeFrom worldly cares and earthly things,And then we go to find the key.

An hour of peace, a day of sin,A week of joy, a year of strife,A knowledge of the “voice within,”That tells us of the after life.An effort through heaven’s gates to pry,A pilgrimage of gloom and glee;We bud, we bloom, we fade, we die,And then we go to find the key.