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C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Indifference

By Sándor Petőfi (1823–1849)

Translation of Sir John Bowring

“WITH calm indifference good and evil bear:”

So saith the sage, and so the world replies;

But not too wisely—’tis not my device;

Pleasures and pains, my comfort and my care,

Must leave their impress, both of ill and good:

My soul is not a flood

Equally moved, when a sweet infant throws

O’er me a scattered rose,

As when the whirlwind brings

Down from the forest a torn trunk, and flings

It furiously upon my wanderings.