yet it seems
Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
And there's but common greenness after that.
A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in cruel happiness That even lovers drown.
I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.
Heaven blazing into the head: Tragedy wrought to its uttermost. Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages And all the drop-scenes drop at once Upon a hundred thousand stages It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled.
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.