To watch man doubt and fear,
Who knows not what to believe
Since he sees nothing clear,
And dares stamp nothing false where he finds nothing sure.
Is this, Pausanias, so?
And can our souls not strive,
But with the winds must go,
And hurry where they drive?
Is Fate indeed so strong, man’s strength indeed so poor?
I will not judge! that man,
Howbeit, I judge as lost,
Whose mind allows a plan
Which would degrade it most;
And he treats doubt the best who tries to see least ill.
Be not, then, fear’s blind slave!
Thou art my friend; to thee,
All knowledge that I have,
All skill I wield, are free;
Ask not the latest news of the last miracle,
Ask not what days and nights
In trance Pantheia lay,
But ask how thou such sights
May’st see without dismay;
Ask what most helps when known, thou son of Anchitus!
What? hate, and awe, and shame
Fill thee to see our world;
Thou feelest thy soul’s frame
Shaken and rudely hurl’d.
What? life and chance go hard with thee too, as with us;
Thy citizens, ’tis said,
Envy thee and oppress,
Thy goodness no men aid,
All strive to make it less;
Tyranny, pride, and lust fill Sicily’s abodes;
Heaven is with earth at strife,
Signs make thy soul afraid,
The dead return to life,
Rivers are dried, winds stay’d;
Scarce can one think in calm, so threatening are the Gods;
And we feel, day and night,
The burden of ourselves—
Well, then, the wiser wight
In his own bosom delves,
And asks what ails him so, and gets what cure he can.
The sophist sneers: Fool, take
Thy pleasure, right or wrong!
The pious wail: Forsake
A world these sophists throng!
Be neither saint nor sophist-led, but be a man.
These hundred doctors try
To preach thee to their school.
We have the truth! they cry.
And yet their oracle,
Trumpet it as they will, is but the same as thine.
Once read thy own breast right,
And thou hast done with fears!
Man gets no other light,
Search he a thousand years.
Sink in thyself! there ask what ails thee, at that shrine!
What makes thee struggle and rave?
Why are men ill at ease?—
’Tis that the lot they have
Fails their own will to please;
For man would make no murmuring, were his will obey’d.
And why is it, that still
Man with his lot thus fights?—
’Tis that he makes this will
The measure of his rights,
And believes Nature outraged if his will’s gainsaid.
Couldst thou, Pausanias, learn
How deep a fault is this!
Couldst thou but once discern
Thou hast no right to bliss,
No title from the Gods to welfare and repose;
Then thou wouldst look less mazed
Whene’er of bliss debarr’d,
Nor think the Gods were crazed
When thy own lot went hard.
But we are all the same—the fools of our own woes!
For, from the first faint morn
Of life, the thirst for bliss
Deep in man’s heart is born;
And, sceptic as he is,
He fails not to judge clear if this be quench’d or no.
Nor is the thirst to blame!
Man errs not that he deems
His welfare his true aim,
He errs because he dreams
The world does but exist that welfare to bestow.
We mortals are no kings
For each of whom to sway
A new-made world up-springs
Meant merely for his play;
No, we are strangers here; the world is from of old.
In vain our pent wills fret,
And would the world subdue.
Limits we did not set
Condition all we do;
Born into life we are, and life must be our mould.
Born into life—man grows
Forth from his parents’ stem,
And blends their bloods, as those
Of theirs are blent in them;
So each new man strikes root into a far fore-time.
Born into life—we bring
A bias with us here,
And, when here, each new thing
Affects us we come near;
To tunes we did not call our being must keep chime.
Born into life—in vain,
Opinions, those or these,
Unalter’d to retain
The obstinate mind decrees;
Experience, like a sea, soaks all-effacing in.
Born into life—who lists
May what is false hold dear,
And for himself make mists
Through which to see less clear;
The world is what it is, for all our dust and din.
Born into life—’tis we,
And not the world, are new.
Our cry for bliss, our plea,
Others have urged it too;
Our wants have all been felt, our errors made before.
No eye could be too sound
To observe a world so vast,
No patience too profound
To sort what’s here amass’d;
How man may here best live no care too great to explore.
But we—as some rude guest
Would change, where’er he roam,
The manners there profess’d
To those he brings from home—
We mark not the world’s course, but would have it take ours.
The world’s course proves the terms
On which man wins content;
Reason the proof confirms;
We spurn it, and invent
A false course for the world, and for ourselves, false powers.
Riches we wish to get,
Yet remain spendthrifts still;
We would have health, and yet
Still use our bodies ill;
Bafflers of our own prayers, from youth to life’s last scenes.
We would have inward peace,
Yet will not look within;
We would have misery cease,
Yet will not cease from sin;
We want all pleasant ends, but will use no harsh means;
We do not what we ought,
What we ought not, we do,
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through;
But our own acts, for good or ill, are mightier powers.
Yet, even when man forsakes
All sin—is just, is pure,
Abandons all which makes
His welfare insecure—
Other existences there are, that clash with ours.
Like us, the lightning fires
Love to have scope and play;
The stream, like us, desires
An unimpeded way;
Like us, the Libyan wind delights to roam at large.
Streams will not curb their pride
The just man not to entomb,
Nor
