Life

And Time, a maniac scattering dust, And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

 

I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing.

 

Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.

 

The deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use, As though to breathe were life!

 

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race.

 

Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honor’d of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravel’d world.

 

The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end.

 

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

 

Ah, why Should life all labor be?

 

No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly longed for death.

 

Our plesance here is all vain glory, This false world is but transitory.

 

Kingdoms are but cares, State is devoid of stay; Riches are ready snares, And hasten to decay.

 

The clouds above us join and separate, The breeze in the courtyard leaves and returns. Life is like that, so why not relax? Who can stop us from celebrating?

I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. I don’t care for the great centuries. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity. I am at ease in my generation.

[ Final diary entry :] Occupation is essential. Andnow with some pleasure I find that it’s seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.

Duh poor guy! . . . Maybe he’s found out by now dat he’ll neveh live long enough to know duh whole of Brooklyn. It’d take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo. An’ even den, yuh wouldn’t know it all.

It is this ability to bear what is unbearable and to go on living, to go on doing what one is used to doing—it is this uncanny ability that the existence of the human species is based on.

Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist .

Make voyages!—Attempt them! —there’s nothing else.

To believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die.

Don’t tell me that you have exhausted life.

So that, in the end, there was no end.

Death twitches my ear. “Live,” he says; “I am coming.”