" Where he
speaks of resignation, after showing how the less impetuous and
self-concentred natures can acquiesce in the order of this life, even
were it to bring them back with an end unattained to the place whence
they set forth; after showing how it is the poet's office to live
rather than to act in and thro' the whole life round about him, he
concludes thus:
"The world in which we live and move
Outlasts aversion, outlasts love.....
Nay, and since death, which wipes out man,
Finds him with many an unsolved plan,....
Still gazing on the ever full
Eternal mundane spectacle,
This world in which we draw our breath
In some sense, Fausta, outlasts death.....
Enough, we live:--and, if a life
With large results so little rife,
Tho' bearable, seem scarcely worth
This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth,
Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread,
The solemn hills around us spread,
This stream that falls incessantly,
The strange-scrawled rocks, the lonely sky,
If I might lend their life a voice,
Seem to bear rather than rejoice.
And, even could the intemperate prayer
Man iterates, while these forbear,
For movement, for an ampler sphere,
Pierce fate's impenetrable ear,
Not milder is the general lot
Because our spirits have forgot,
In actions's dizzying eddy whirled,
The something that infects the world.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199