The poet sings a mourn­ful song,
Whose me­lan­cho­ly part
Has doubt­less found an ec­ho strong
In ma­ny a hu­man heart;
But in the great Eter­nal Mind
Where first a soul was born,
No such stern fi­at do I find
As Man was made to mourn.

When fresh from the Cre­at­ive Hand,
He stood a lord­ly king,
To have and hold su­preme com­mand
O’er ev­ery liv­ing thing.
And Heav’n had give­n of its best
An Ed­en to adorn,
Man had not ev­en there been blest,
Had he been made to mourn.

God looked up­on the fin­ished earth:
Behold, ’tis good, He said;
Nor thorn nor this­tle yet had birth,
Nor hu­man tear been shed.
’Twas meant that man should live, not die,
And he had ne­ver worn
The stamp of im­mor­tal­ity,
Had he been made to mourn.

’Twas not un­til a craf­ty foe,
With rank and poi­son­ous breath,
Had en­tered pa­ra­dise below
And sown the seeds of death;
’Twas not till man had dis­ob­eyed,
And sin its fruit had borne.
That pa­ra­dise be­gan to fade
And man be­gan to mourn.

Alas! though Ad­am sinned and died,
The seed which then took root,
Has grown and scat­tered far and wide,
And borne its bit­ter fruit;
E’er since, life’s flow­ers of sweet­est bloom
Have grown be­side the thorn,
And from the cra­dle to the tomb,
Man ceas­es not to mourn.

Through Ed­en’s long con­tin­ued gloom
This star of hope has gleamed:
When Shi­loh shall again have come
And pa­ra­dise re­deemed,
When earth, as Heav’n, shall do His will,
Then Sa­tan shall be shorn
Of all his po­ten­cy for ill,
And man shall cease to mourn.

Till then, we’ll wait, en­dure and toil,
In sun­shine or in show­ers,
Content to know that when we call
The pro­mised help is ours;
Some day, be­yond this low­er land,
When earth­ly ties are torn,
We’ll see and bet­ter un­der­stand—
Man was not made to mourn.