THE OTHER
No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay,
No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way,
Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men,
That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may.
Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum;
Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come;
Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied;
Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb.
O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue,
All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung,
Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all,
Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is a curtain flung.