In wealth, rich burghers of my bounteous land?...
By what enormity of lawless doom,
Without one friendly sigh,
I go to the strong mound of yon strange tomb—
All hapless, having neither part nor room
With those who live or those who die.“[[24]]
Even faith seems swept away for a moment in this access of physical weakness. But a gleam comes back, flickering through the clouds of doubt upon that shadowy region of the Underworld:
“Dear will my coming be, father, to thee,
And dear to thee, my mother, and to thee,
Brother! since with these very hands I decked