At first it is is only—
"But where are ye, O moments tender
Of young my hopes, of heartfelt peace?
The former heat and grace of inspiration?
Come again, O ye, of spring my years!"
But later it becomes—
"Before me memory in silence
Its lengthy roll unfolds,
And with disgust my life I reading
Tremble I and curse it.
Bitterly I moan, and bitterly my tears I shed
But wash away the lines of grief I cannot.
In laziness, in senseless feasts,
In the madness of ruinous license,
In thraldom, poverty, and homeless deserts
My wasted years there I behold...."
17. Regret, in itself a disease, but only of the intellect, soon changes into a more violent disease: into a disease of the constitution, which is fear, fear of insanity. In ordinary minds such disease takes the form of fear for the future, of worry for existence; in extraordinary minds it takes more ghastly shapes,—distrust of friends, and dread of the close embrace of what is already stretching forth its claws after the soul,—insanity.
Hence,—
"God grant I grow not insane:
No, better the stick and beggar's bag;
No, better toil and hunger bear.
. . . . . . . . . .
If crazy once,
A fright thou art like pestilence,
And locked up now shalt thou be.
"To a chain thee, fool, they 'll fasten
And through the gate, a circus beast,
Thee to nettle the people come.
"And at night not hear shall I
Clear the voice of nightingale
Nor the forest's hollow sound,
"But cries alone of companions mine
And the scolding guards of night
And a whizzing, of chains a ringing."
18. That thoughts of death should now be his companions is only to be expected. But here again his muse plainly sings itself out in both stages,—the stage of discernment and the stage of fulfilment. In the first of the two poems, "Elegy" and "Death-Thoughts" he only thinks of death; in the second he already longs for it.
In the first it is only—