He lives through the moments of dejection and awaits, with sure hope, those moments when
Life and joy are one—we know not why—
As though our very blood long breathless lain
Had tasted of the breath of God again.
There are times when he is at almost that pitch of bliss for days together, and he says with each evening:
That I have known no day
In all my life like this.
And with any dawn may come the exhilaration and the resolve
I too will something make
And joy in the making.
Very rarely some slight dogmatic statement is actually present, the affirmation of something which is not necessarily false because it is as old as man, and modestly put. "For howso'er man hug his care, The best of his art is gay." He sees Spring in Winter more often than Winter in Spring:
And God the Maker doth my heart make bold
To praise for writing works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
Evil and good as one, and all as good.
It may by some be called an easy acceptance; by others the answer will be made that the refusal to accept does not get us much further. Mr. Bridges's own answer would perhaps be Lycomedes':
men who would live well
Weigh not these riddles, but unfold their life
From day to day.