SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
Most men eddy about go
Here and there—eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurled in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving 65
Nothing; and then they die,—
Perish;—and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlight solitudes mild 70
Of the midmost Ocean, have swelled,
Foamed for a moment, and gone.
And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent, 75
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die 80
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave!
We, we have chosen our path,—
Path to a clear-purposed go-al, 85
Path of advance!—but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with 'friends, we set forth—
Then, on the height, comes the storm. <#>
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock, the cataracts reply,
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