 | Vigil and vision |  |
LIFE'S SUMMING-UP.
1
“LIFE is too short for question”, quoth the sage;“Laugh and let be!” The saw is simple sooth:
And now, indeed, less worthy wrath than ruth,
All things set down upon the ended page,
I find its record; for the years assuage
The ardent indignation of hot youth.
To-day no more I blame the Fates uncouth
Nor heaven inhospitable accuse: I rail
No longer at the Gods, as knowing they,
For all their pride and pomp of high estate,
Are, even as we creatures of a day,
But bondmen of inexorable Fate,
And once their term accomplished, even as we,
Under the dust of doom must buried be.
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2
Nor do I rail at life and fellow-men:No more the page accomplished I re-read,
The script of done and undone, stress and need,
Nor overthink the wrongs endured erewhen.
To all which is and was I say “Amen!”
What matters it? The Past is past indeed
And the ripe age's all-atoning reed
With manhood's Now hath overwrit youth's Then.
But this I know, that, life for me once done
And I, work ended, safe in the domain
Back of the Selfless Whole, no Will-to-be
Shall lure me forth to look upon the sun
Nor aught avail with me to wear again
The vesture of this world of vanity.
| Vigil and vision | |