University of Virginia Library

3.

And was it chance, or was it intuition?
Vast were the treasures of his erudition;
But from the stores of truths which he possess'd
(The one half serving to refute the rest)
That Sage, by dint of long and deep reflection,
Could not have made a luckier selection,
For, whilst Philosophy thus took her stand
Calm, as became her, upon good firm land,
The truth which she proclaim'd, (put out no whit
By plentiful cold water pour'd on it)
Her influence proved; awakening there and then
In the damp'd spirits of those drowning men,
This thought: that, if Fate treats the self-same way
The willing and unwilling, whether they
Resist or yield, the end's the same end still,
And bootless both, to will or not to will.
Its next result inverted that conviction,
Proving the force of truth by contradiction,
Philosophy's chief triumph! Thus, the first
Of those two men, who, with a will athirst
For sudden watery annihilation,
Had jump'd into the river,—tho' natation
Was not to him an art unknown, forewent it,
Letting his body, as the current sent it,
Drift will-less down the water, and from volens
Became, comparatively speaking, nolens.
The other, who was in the same position
Against his will, exerting strong volition,
Tax'd all his wits to compensate to him
The sad chance of not knowing how to swim;
Call'd to his mind the bride who now no doubt
Was wondering what her bridegroom was about,
Imaged her loss in his; and, fortified
By fond emotions, strove against the tide
With such a vigorous valour that at length
He reach'd, and caught, and clutch'd with all his strength,
The lean arm of a weeping willow tree;
Which o'er the water stoop'd, and seem'd to be
Already making solemn preparation
For his appropriate funeral oration.
Tho' much it wept, the willow's nerves were strong:
The man, meanwhile, cried lustily and long.
And, since 'twas not in Latin that he cried,
But that plain language everywhere employ'd
By living creatures to express joy, pain,
Or need, a ploughman on the neighbouring plain
Heard him; and, understanding from the sound
That some one was unwilling to be drown'd,
Ran to the rescue.