Life! Ah, Life!
What may this flourescent pageant mean?
Who can the evanescent object glean?
He that is dead is the key of Life -
Gone is the symbol, deep is the grave!

Man is a breath, and Life is the fire;
Birth is death, and silence the choir
Wrest from the aeons the heart of gold!
Tear from the fabric the threads that are old!
Life! Ah, Life!

- L. Phillips Howard

These lines profound expressly were design'd
To please the deep poetic modern mind.
Herein no tawdry metric art appears,
Nor does the meaning roughly stain our ears.
With true chaotic grace the formless rhymes
Stagger along, and suit the cultur'd times.
Should some chance word a directer sound present,
Frown not too harshly on the accident,
And if one trace of utter sense be there,
Forgive the poet for his want of care.