Mid-Winter Monody

There's a bleak, black world without,
   And the rain falls fast;
And the wind, with a whine and a shout,
   Blows buffetting past
To wail thro' the tortured trees,
   With cold wet breat,
Like a choir of dank banshees
   Foretelling death.
 
I sit by the fire and I now,
   And I juggle with rhymes.
Oh, the ways of our world grow odd,
  And the trend of our times.
My tired eyes roam the news,
   These columns tell
Of earth and its warring views,
   And I sigh, "Well, well!"
 
Idly I turn the page;
   And I ponder then
Of the hopes and the dreams and the rage
   And the folly of men.
What profits this modern show?
   And where do we gain?
But -- twenty short years ago,
   Ah, then we were sane!
 
Speed-drunk and pleasure-crazed
   We ravage and waste,
Dull, sentient things, half-dazed
   By our own mad haste;
Selling content for gold,
   Our peace for a fad.
Alas, for the wisdom of old!
   We are mad! stark mad!
 
How, when, came earth's golden age --
   If ever it shone?
Wise years of the saint and the sage,
   These are gone -- long gone,
Never to blossom again
   'Mid a peace well-won,
In a world of the simply sane.
   We are doomed!  We are done!
 
When a score more years drift on,
   Then another shall dwell,
Here in my place, when I've gone.
   And he'll sigh, "Well, well!
What profits this modern show?
   And where do we gain?
But -- twenty short years ago,
   Ah, then we were sane!"