For ’tis not joy, it is not gain,

It is not in itself a bliss,

Only it is precisely this

That keeps us all alive.

To say we truly feel the pain,

And quite are sinking with the strain;—

Entirely, simply, undeceived,

Believe, and say we ne’er believed

The object, e’en were it achieved,

A thing we e’er had cared to keep;