PART V
WINTER
We, whom God sets a task,
Striving, who ne'er attain,
We are the curst!—who ask
Death, and still ask in vain.
We, whom God sets a task.
1
In the silence of his room. After many days.
All, all are shadows. All must pass
As writing in the sand or sea;
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.
The days that mould us—what are they?
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.
Linked through the ages, one and all,
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.