VII.
Not for atonement, not for bliss;
Truly for nothing: so it was.
Nay, friends, think well! Renounce the
dream!
Seek not some mystery in the kiss,
Some virtue in the chrysopras,
Some nymph or undine in the stream.
Things as we know them should be enough
To glut our misery and our love.
VIII.
Why must despair to madness drive
The myriad fools that fear to die?
God’s but a fervid phantom drawn
Out of the hasty-ordered hive
Of thoughts that battle agony
In the melancholy hours of dawn.
When vital force at lowest ebbs
Anaemic nerves weave frailest webs.