Life’s Question Poem by Henry Alford

Drifting away
Like mote on the stream,
To--day's disappointment
Yesterday's dream;
Ever resolving--
Never to mend:
Such is our progress:
Where is the end?

Whirling away
Like leaf in the wind,
Points of attachment
Left daily behind,
Fixed to no principle;
Fast to no friend;
Such our fidelity:
Where is the end?

Floating away
Like cloud on the hill,
Pendulous, tremulous,
Migrating still:
Where to repose ourselves?
Whither to tend?
Such our consistency:
Where is the end?

Crystal the pavement,
Seen through the stream:
Firm the reality
Under the dream:
We may not feel it,
Still we may mend:
How we have conquered
Not known, till the end.

Bright leaves may scatter,
Sports of the wind,
But stands to the winter
The great tree behind:
Frost shall not wither it,
Storms cannot bend:
Roots firmly clasping
The rock, at the end.

Calm is the firmament
Over the cloud:
Clear shine the stars, through
The rifts of the shroud:
There our repose shall be,
Thither we tend:
Spite of our waverings
Approved at the End.