If
July 6, 2023Earliest Spring
July 6, 2023From Generation to Generation
INNOCENT spirits, bright, immaculate ghosts!
Why throng your heavenly hosts,
As eager for their birth
In this sad home of death, this sorrow-haunted earth?
Beware! Beware! Content you where you are,
And shun this evil star
Where we who are doomed to die,
Have our brief being and pass, we know not where or why.
We have not to consent or to refuse;
It is not ours to choose:
We come because we must,
We know not by what law, if unjust or if just.
The doom is on us, as it is on you,
That nothing can undo;
And all in vain you warn:
As your fate is to die, our fate is to be born.
William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American author and literary critic who played a significant role in the development of American literature in the late 19th century. He is considered the father of American realism and his most famous works include "The Rise of Silas Lapham" and "A Hazard of New Fortunes." Howells was also a champion of many of his contemporary writers, including Mark Twain and Henry James.