Life and Existence

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

 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

I will drink Life to the lees.

 

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

 

She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro’ the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack’d from side to side. “The curse is come upon me,” cried

 

Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.

 

Ah, why Should life all labor be?

 

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

 

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

 

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

 

I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

 

I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

 

She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

 

There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.