"Like Snow it comes—to cool one burning Day;
And like it goes—for all our plea or sway.
But flooding tears nor Wine can ever purge
The Vision it has brought to us away."
"But to this world we come and Why not knowing,
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the waste,
We know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing."
"True, little do we know of Why or Whence.
But is forsooth our Darkness evidence
There is no Light?—the worm may see no star
Tho' heaven with myriad multitudes be dense."
"But, all unasked, we're hither hurried Whence?
And, all unasked, we're Whither hurried hence?
O, many a cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence."
"Yet can not—ever! For it is forbid
Still by that quenchless Soul within us hid,
Which cries, 'Feed—feed me not on Wine alone,
For to Immortal Banquets I am bid.'"
"Well oft I think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled:
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head."
"Then if, from the dull Clay thro' with Life's throes,
More beautiful spring Hyacinth and Rose,
Will the great Gardener for the uprooted soul
Find Use no sweeter than—useless Repose?"
"We cannot know—so fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regret and future fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow we may be
Ourselves with Yesterday's sev'n thousand Years."
"No Cup there is to bring oblivion
More during than Regret and Fear—no, none!
For Wine that's Wine to-day may change and be
Marah before to-morrow's Sands have run."
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went."