The moving finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."
Neither from earth nor heaven could he find any answer to his cry. With sages and saints he discussed, and heard, "great argument, but evermore came out by the same door as in he went." He left the wise to talk, for one thing alone was certain, and all else was lies,—"the flower that once has blown for ever dies." Leaving men he turned to nature, but it was all the same.
"Up from earth's centre through the seventh gate
I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,
And many knots unravell'd by the road;
But not the knot of human death and fate.
And that inverted bowl we call the sky,