ath leans to death! nor shall your vigilance
Prevent him from whate'er he would possess,
Nor, brother, shall unfilial peevishness
Prevent you from the grand inheritance.

XXVI

Farewell, my soul!--bird in the narrow jail
Who cannot sing. The door is opened! Fly!
Ah, soon you stop, and looking down you cry
The saddest song of all, poor nightingale.

XXVII

Our fortune is like mariners to float
Amid the perils of dim waterways;
Shall then our seamanship have aught of praise
If the great anchor drags behind the boat?

XXVIII

Ah! let the burial of yesterday,
Of yesterday be ruthlessly decreed,
And, if you will, refuse the mourner's reed,
And, if you will, plant cypress in the way.

XXIX

As little shall it serve you in the fight
If you remonstrate with the storming seas,
As if you querulously sigh to these
Of some imagined haven of delight.

XXX

Steed of my soul! when you and I were young
We lived to cleave as arrows thro' the night,--
Now there is ta'en from me the last of light,
And wheresoe'er I gaze a veil is hung.

XXXI

No longer as a wreck shall I be hurled
Where beacons lure the fascinated helm,
For I have been admitted to the realm
Of darkness that encompasses the world.

XXXII

Man has been thought superior to the swarm
Of ruminating cows, of witless foals
Who, crouching when the voice of thunder rolls,
Are banqueted upon a thunderstorm.

XXXIII

But shall the fearing eyes of humankind
Have peeped beyond the curtain and excel
The boldness of a wondering gazelle
Or of a bird imprisoned in the wind?

XXXIV

Ah! never may we hope to win release
Before we that unripeness overthrow,--
So must the corn in agitation grow
Before the sickle sings the songs of peace.

XXXV

Lo! there are many ways and many traps
And many guides, and which of them is lord?
For verily Mahomet has the sword,
And he may have the truth--perhaps! _perhaps!_

XXXVI

Now this religion happens to prevail
Until by that religion overthrown,--
Because men dare not live with men alone,
But always with another fairy-tale.

XXXVII

Religion is a charming girl, I say;
But over this poor threshold will not pass,
For I may not unveil her, and alas!
The bridal gift I can't afford to pay.

XXXVIII

I have imagined that our welfare is
Required to rise triumphant from defeat;
And so the musk, which as the more you beat,
Giv