V.
By rugged ways I reach towards a bourn
Which awes me not, and if I strive to slack
My usual pace, or for a change draw back,
There am I dragged with cruel unconcern;
But still, with death at hand, for life I yearn,
And seek fresh means my footsteps to reverse;
I know the better, I approve the worse,
Either from evil custom, or the stern
Fatality of woe. Yet, my brief time—
The wandering process of my wayward years
Alike in manhood as in early prime,—
My will (with which I war not now) in fact,
Sure Death, whose peaceful slumber dries all tears,
Make me not care the harm to counteract.
VI.
He who has lost so much, stern Deity,
Can lose no more! oh Love, let what has past
Suffice thee—let it profit me at last
Ne'er to have shrunk from thy supreme decree.
On the white walls of thy pure sanctuary
My pictured tablets and dank robes I hung,
Ev'n as a shipwrecked solitary, flung
Safely ashore from thy tempestuous sea.
Then vowed I never more to trust the bliss,
At my command and option, to the guile
Of such another syren, but from this
How shall vows save me? in the risk I run
I break no vow, for neither is her smile
Like others' smiles, nor in my power to shun.