Vanity

Anonymous

THE SUN comes up and the sun goes down,

And day and night are the same as one;

The year grows green, and the year grows brown,

And what is it all, when all is done?

Grains of sombre or shining sand,

Gliding into and out of the hand.

And men go down in ships to the seas,

And a hundred ships are the same as one;

And backward and forward blows the breeze,

And what is it all, when all is done?

A tide with never a shore in sight

Getting steadily on to the night.

The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,

And a hundred streams are the same as one;

And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream,

And what is it all, when all is done?

The net of the fisher the burden breaks,

And alway the dreaming the dreamer wakes.