And ever widening slowly silence all.
“The little rift within the lover’s lute
Or little pitted speck in garner’d fruit,
That, rotting onward slowly moulders all.”
Slowly, sometimes, but surely. Not so slowly as surely.
Remembering both the “foolish pride” of Jonah in his gourd, and his “impious discontentment” at the decree which smote it, which of us but might, for ourselves, do worse than adopt the words and the spirit of one verse at least of Pope’s Universal Prayer,
“Save me alike from foolish pride
And impious discontent
At aught Thy wisdom hath denied,
Or aught Thy bounty lent.”