All half-gains, and conjectures, and mere hopes- And this, because a fortune-teller bids
His credulous inquirers write thus much, Their previous life's attainment, in his book, Before his promised secret, as he vaunts, Make that life perfect: here, accordingly, 'Mid the uncouth recordings of such dupes, -Scrawled in like fashion, lie my life's results!
These few blurred characters suffice to note A stranger wandered long through many lands, And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few Discoveries, as appended here and there, The fragmentary produce of much toil, In a dim heap, fact and surmise together Confusedly massed, as when acquired; himself Too bent on gaining more to calmly stay And scrutinize the little which he gained: Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber And a mad lover's ditty-lies the whole!
And yet those blottings chronicle a life
A whole life, mine! No thought to turn to act, No problem for the fancy, but a life
Spent and decided, wasted past recall,
Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, turn the page And take its chance, thus: what, concerning "life" Does this remembrancer set down?" We say "Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.'
""Tis the mere echo of time; and he whose heart "Beats first beneath a human heart, whose speech "Was copied from a human tongue, can never "Recall when he was living yet knew not this. "Nevertheless long seasons come and go,
“Till some one hour's experience shows what nought, "He deemed, could clearer show; and ever after "An altered brow, and eye, and gait, and speech "Attest that now he knows the adage true "Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.'”
Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same time As well as any: let my hour speak now!
Now! I can go no further; well or ill—
'Tis done. I must desist and take my chance;
I cannot keep on the stretch; 'tis no back-shrinking- For let the least assurance dawn, some end To my toil seem possible, and I proceed At any price, by any sacrifice :
Else, here I pause: the old Greek's prophecy Is like to turn out true-" I shall not quit "His chamber till I know what I desire!" Was it the light wind sung it, o'er the sea?
An end, a rest! strange how the notion, once Admitted, gains strength every moment!
Where kept that thought so long? this throbbing brow —this beating heart to cease— -its crowd
Of gnawing thoughts to cease!-To dare let down My strung, so high-strung brain—to dare unnerve My harassed o'ertasked frame-to know my place, -My portion, my reward, my failure even, Assigned, made sure forever!-To lose myself Among the common creatures of the world-- To draw some gain from having been a man— Neither to hope nor fear-to live at length! Oh, were it but in failure, to have rest! What, sunk insensibly so deep? Has all Been undergone for this? Was this the prayer My labour qualified me to present
With no fear of refusal? Had I gone
Carelessly through my task, and so judged fit To moderate my hopes; nay, were it now My sole concern to exculpate myself, And lessen punishment,—I could not choose An humbler mood to wait for the decree ! No, no, there needs not this; no, after all, At worst I have performed my share of the task: The rest is God's concern-mine, merely this, To know that I have obstinately held
By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot Has trod, unscathed, the temple-courts so far That he descries at length the shrine of shrines, Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes, Whose wrath he met unquailing, follow sly And fasten on him, fairly past their power, If where he stands he dares but stay; no, no-
He must not stagger, faint and fall at last, -Knowing a charm to baffle them; behold, He bares his front-a mortal ventures thus Serene amid the echoes, beams, and glooms! If he be priest henceforth, or if he wake
The god of the place to ban and blast him there,- Both well! What's failure or success to me?
I have subdued my life to the one end Ordained life; there alone I cannot doubt, That only way I may be satisfied.
Yes, well have I subdued my life! beyond The obligation of my strictest vows, The contemplation of my wildest bond, Which gave, in truth, my nature freely up,
In what it should be, more than what it was- Consenting that whatever passions slept,
Whatever impulses lay unmatured,
Should wither in the germ, but scarce foreseeing That the soil, doomed thus to perpetual waste, Would seem one day, remembered in its youth Beside the parched sand-tract which now it is, Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then. I ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail I felt them not; yet now, 'tis very plain Some soft spots had their birth in me at first- If not love, say, like love: there was a time When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge Set not remorselessly love's claims aside; This heart was human once, or why recall
Einsiedeln, now, and Würzburg, which the Mayne Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm?
And Festus-my poor Festus, with his praise, And counsel, and grave fears-where is he now? Or the sweet maiden, long ago his bride?
I surely loved them-that last night,, at least,
When we... gone! gone! the better: I am saved The sad review of an ambitious youth, Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth, But let grow up and wind around a will Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone Purging my path successively of aught Wearing the distant likeness of such lusts. I have made life consist of one idea: Ere that was master-up till that was born- I bear a memory of a pleasant life
Whose small events I treasure; till one morn I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields, Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy, To leave all trouble for futurity,
Since I had just determined to become
The greatest and most glorious man on earth. And since that morn all life has been forgot; All is one day-one only step between The outset and the end: one tyrant aim, Absorbing all, fills up the interval—
One vast unbroken chain of thought kept up
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