| |
| I SAW a man, by some accounted wise, | |
| For some things said and done before their eyes, | |
| Quite overcast, and, in a restless muse, | |
| Pacing a path about, | |
| And often giving out: | 5 |
| “What is the use?” | |
| |
| Then I, with true respect: “What meanest thou | |
| By those strange words, and that unsettled brow; | |
| Health, wealth, the fair esteem of ample views? | |
| To these things thou art born.” | 10 |
| But he, as one forlorn, | |
| “What is the use? | |
| |
| “I have surveyed the sages and their books, | |
| Man, and the natural world of woods and brooks, | |
| Seeking that perfect good that I would choose; | 15 |
| But find no perfect good, | |
| Settled, and understood. | |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Life, in a poise, hangs trembling on the beam, | |
| Even in a breath bounding to each extreme | 20 |
| Of Joy and sorrow; therefore I refuse | |
| All beaten ways of bliss, | |
| And only answer this: | |
| ‘What is the use?’ | |
| |
| “Who ’ll care for me when I am dead and gone? | 25 |
| Not many now—and, surely, soon, not one; | |
| And should I sing like an immortal Muse, | |
| Men, if they read the line, | |
| Read for their good, not mine; | |
| What is the use? | 30 |
| |
| “And song, if passable, is doomed to pass— | |
| Common, though sweet as the new-scythed grass. | |
| Of human deeds and thoughts, Time bears no news, | |
| That, flying, he can lack, | |
| Else they would break his back. | 35 |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Spirit of Beauty, breath of golden lyres, | |
| Perpetual tremble of immortal wires, | |
| Divinely torturing rapture of the Muse, | |
| Conspicuous wretchedness— | 40 |
| Thou starry, sole success— | |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Doth not all struggle tell, upon its brow, | |
| That he who makes it is not easy now, | |
| But hopes to be? Vain Hope, that dost abuse, | 45 |
| Coquetting with thine eyes, | |
| And fooling him who sighs! | |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Go, pry the lintels of the pyramids, | |
| Lift the old kings’ mysterious coffin lids: | 50 |
| This dust was theirs, whose names these stones confuse,— | |
| These mighty monuments | |
| Of mighty discontents. | |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Did not he sum it all, whose gate of pearls | 55 |
| Blazed royal Ophir, Tyre, and Syrian girls,— | |
| The great, wise, famous monarch of the Jews? | |
| Though rolled in grandeur vast, | |
| He said of all, at last, | |
| ‘What is the use?’ | 60 |
| |
| “Oh, but to take of life the natural good, | |
| Even as a hermit caverned in a wood, | |
| More sweetly fills my sober-suited views, | |
| Than sweating to attain | |
| Any luxurious pain. | 65 |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “Give me a hermit’s life, without his beads, | |
| His lantern-jawed and moral-mouthing creeds; | |
| Systems and creeds the natural heart abuse. | |
| What need of any Book, | 70 |
| Or spiritual crook? | |
| What is the use? | |
| |
| “I love, and God is love. And I behold | |
| Man, nature, God, one triple chain of gold, | |
| Nature in all, sole Oracle and Muse. | 75 |
| What should I seek at all, | |
| More than is natural? | |
| What is the use?” | |
| |
| Seeing this man so heathenly inclined, | |
| So wilted in the mood of a good mind, | 80 |
| I felt a kind of heat of earnest thought, | |
| And studying in reply, | |
| Answered him, eye to eye:— | |
| |
| “Thou dost amaze me that thou dost mistake | |
| The wandering rivers for the fountain lake: | 85 |
| What is the end of living?—happiness?— | |
| An end that none attain | |
| Argues a purpose vain. | |
| |
| “Plainly, this world is not a scope for bliss, | |
| But duty. Yet we see not all that is, | 90 |
| Nor may be, some day, if we love the light: | |
| What man is, in desires, | |
| Whispers where man aspires. | |
| |
| “But what and where are we?—what now—to-day? | |
| Souls on a globe that spins our lives away, | 95 |
| A multitudinous world, where heaven and hell, | |
| Strangely in battle met, | |
| Their gonfalons have set. | |
| |
| “Dust though we are, and shall return to dust, | |
| Yet, being born to battles, fight we must; | 100 |
| Under which ensign is our only choice. | |
| We know to wage our best; | |
| God only knows the rest. | |
| |
| “Then, since we see about us sin and dole, | |
| And some things good, why not, with hand and soul, | 105 |
| Wrestle and succor out of wrong and sorrow; | |
| Grasping the swords of strife; | |
| Making the most of life? | |
| |
| “Yea, all that we can wield is worth the end, | |
| If sought as God’s and man’s most loyal friend; | 110 |
| Naked we come into the world, and take | |
| Weapons of various skill— | |
| Let us not use them ill.” | |
| |
