But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which never more return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory.
Affection is like bread, unnoticed till we starve, and then we dream of it, and sing of it, and paint it, when every urchin in the street has more than he can eat.
Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn.
O little feet! that such long years Must wander on through hopes and fears, Must ache and bleed beneath your load; I, nearer to the wayside inn Where toil shall cease and rest begin, Am weary, thinking of your road!
The deep pain that is felt
at the death of every friendly soul
arises from the feeling that there is
in every individual something
which is inexpressible,
peculiar to him alone,
and is, therefore,
absolutely and irretrievably lost.