Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — Consolation

Will then, Duperrier, thy sorrow be eternal?        &nbsp And shall the sad discourse Whispered within thy heart, by tenderness paternal,        &nbsp Only augment its force? Thy daughter's mournful fate, into the tomb descending        &nbsp By death's frequented ways, Has it become to thee a labyrinth never ending,        &nbsp Where thy lost reason strays? I know the charms that made her youth a benediction:        &nbsp Nor should I be content, As a censorious friend, to solace thine affliction        &nbsp By her disparagement. But she was of the world, which fairest things exposes        &nbsp To fates the most forlorn; A rose, she too hath lived as long as live the roses,        &nbsp The space of one brief morn. * * * * * Death has his rigorous laws, unparalleled, unfeeling;        &nbsp All prayers to him are vain; Cruel, he stops his ears, and, deaf to our appealing,        &nbsp He leaves us to complain. The poor man in his hut, with only thatch for cover,        &nbsp Unto these laws must bend; The sentinel that guards the barriers of the Louvre        &nbsp Cannot our kings defend. To murmur against death, in petulant defiance,        &nbsp Is never for the best; To will what God doth will, that is the only science        &nbsp That gives us any rest.