Where find I aid? what follow? what eschew?
Shall I that impulse of my soul obey?
Alas! alas! but I must feel it true,
The pains we suffer and the deeds we do,
Are clogs alike in the free spirit’s way.
The godlike essence of our heaven-born powers
Must yield to strange and still more strange intrusion;
Soon as the good things of this world are ours,
We deem our nobler self a vain illusion,
And heaven-born instincts—very life of life—
Are strangled in the low terrestrial strife.
Young fancy, that once soared with flight sublime,
On venturous vans, ev’n to th’ Eternal’s throne,
Now schools her down a little space to own,
When in the dark engulfing stream of time,
Our fair-faced pleasures perish one by one.
Care nestles deep in every heart,
And, cradling there the secret smart,
Rocks to and fro, and peace and joy are gone.
What though new masks she still may wear,
Wealth, house and hall, with acres rich and rare,
As wife or child appear she, water, flame,
Dagger, or poison, she is still the same;
And still we fear the ill which happens never,
And what we lose not are bewailing ever.
Alas! alas! too deep ’tis felt! too deep!
With gods may vie no son of mortal clay;
More am I like to worms that crawl and creep,
And dig, and dig through earth their lightless way,
Which, while they feed on dust in narrow room,
Find from the wanderer’s foot their death-blow and their tomb.
Is it not dust that this old wall
From all its musty benches shows me?
And dust the trifling trumperies all
That in this world of moths enclose me?
Here is it that I hope to find
Wherewith to sate my craving mind?
Need I spell out page after page,
To know that men in every age
And every clime, have spurred in vain
