spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make, With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear To grunt and sweat under a weary life; But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, - puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict. Thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm: thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. SHAKSPEARE: Measure for Measure. LIFE AND DEATH. AY, but to die, and go we know not where, To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot: This sensible warm motion to be come A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling regions of thick-ribbèd ice: To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts Imagine howling!-'tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life, That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature, is a paradise Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, Brought from a pensive though a happy place. He spake of love, such love as spirits feel -no strife to In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away heal The past unsighed for, and the future sure; Spake of heroic arts in graver mood Revived, with finer harmony pursued; Of all that is most beauteousimaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream The ever silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seemed To his great heart none other than a God! I asked thee, "Give me immortality." Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give, But thy strong Hours indignant worked their wills, And beat me down and marred and wasted me, And though they could not end me, left me maimed To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, love, Thy beauty, make amends, though even now, Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: Why should a man desire in any way To vary from the kindly race of men, Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. |