I will not shut me from my kind, And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:
What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho’ with might To scale the heaven’s highest height, Or dive below the wells of Death?
What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom chanting hymns? And on the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face.
I’ll rather take what fruit may be Of sorrow under human skies: ’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.