Murmur, a little softly, how love fled--
So you have failed in your ambitions, friend?
What of it? So I too have seen the end
Of every dream for which I fervent pled,
Prayed unto God; and so my life has sped
Forward when even I may not pretend
To have a hope, and see the end impend
In life a failure, starved by what hope fed.
What are ambitions? Dreams! And what are dreams?
A pleasant breeze against the face, while they
May lave, but life is never what it seems
And so we fail—while hoping that we may
See some reversal as fortune’s bright beams
Wash over all our face; so hopes will play.
It all comes down to lack of money: cash--
And we may never get the plumbing done,
The things to work right, fixed whatever one
Must like to see repaired, as fortunes crash.
These are the problems in which life’s awash,
No end to them, and these, once they’ve begun
Will not depart till life has us outrun,
After so much of bunk and balderdash.
Bunco and bunkum, these with us remain
After so many better things have passed,
And though we live, when hopes and fortunes wane
We wonder at the worth of what’s amassed,
Experience and all, through hardship, strain
And pain that yet by others’ is outclassed.
Friend, these things that you feel, I too have felt,
And often wept a salty tear because
I scarcely can commence to pass my days
Given the losses with which I am dealt--
Yet, even as I tighten up the belt,
“Roll up the shirtsleeves” as the common phrase
Will have it, so to face the funk and faze
That heart has felt, when mind has over-dwelt,
So too you must. ’Tis easier, I know
To say a word or two, than do the thing,
But so it is with each of us in woe,
And so, alone, we each of us take fling
Against adversity, and overthrow
Of all our person that the future bring.
I wish I had an end to death, to greed’s
Impulse in man wherewith I lay the blame
On those whom, perhaps wrongly, I defame
Because it seem from such so all proceeds--
The hardship, scarcity, these wants and needs
Which, dwelled upon, would but my wrath inflame
Though nothing thereby had been overcame
In tearing down the barrier that impedes.
I feel a lack of faith: one must abide
Without attainment of these things, despite
The sorrow so to bear, too big to hide,
Until we reach the ultimate good-night,
Men’s destination by life’s bumpy ride
Propelled, though weak and weary, filled with fright.
Forward we go. I have no “magic words”
To aid you in your quest—whatever it
May be for which you feel so desperate
In yearning. Let it all go by the boards,
For there is nothing harbored in hope’s hoards
Deserving of such anguish. Through the grit
Of life must we proceed, indefinite
In its duration, as one forward fords.
Relinquish that which is the cause of pain,
Release it to the ether. By release
Only will peaceful spirit rise again,
And these wild perturbations lull to cease,
For hope’s ambitions harm when hoped in vain
Whilst heaven’s hand dispose itself to please.
We live, and so the depths we have to plumb
In spirit, while the little things, unfixed
Remain to thwart us: ever life is mixed
Between the elements, and we are dumb
Or driven to distraction biting thumb
Because we find ourselves perplexed, betwixt
The petty and the grandiose, and are nixed
In aims, ambitions to which heart succumb.
So I have felt, and fallen unto sorrow
So deep that it were classified despair,
Without the will to live until tomorrow,
Without a friend to help me anywhere--
But so we live; from one another borrow
Some solace, each of grief bearing his share.