CANTO THE FOURTEENTH. I. IF from great Nature's or our own abyss 1 Of Thought we could but snatch a certainty, Much as old Saturn ate his progeny ; II. But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast, You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one. III. For me, I know nought; nothing I deny, "Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be." An age may come, Font of Eternity, When nothing shall be either old or new. Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, IV. A sleep without dreams, after a rough day V. "T is round him-near him-here-there-everywhereAnd there's a courage which grows out of fear, Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare The worst to know it :—when the mountains rear VI. 'T is true, you don't-but, pale and struck with terror, To the unknown; a secret prepossession, To plunge with all your fears-but where? You know not, And that's the reason why you do—or do not. VII. But what's this to the purpose? you will say. 1. [With this open mind with regard to the future, compare Charles Kingsley's "reverent curiosity" (Letters and Memoirs, etc., 1883, p. For which my sole excuse is 't is my way; This narrative is not meant for narration, But a mere airy and fantastic basis, To build up common things with common places. VIII. You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, "Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows;" 1 And such a straw, borne on by human breath, Is Poesy, according as the Mind glows; A paper kite which flies 'twixt Life and Death, A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws: IX. The World is all before me 2-or behind; Until I fairly knocked it up with rhyme. X. I have brought this world about my ears, and eke And yet I can't help scribbling once a week, 1. ["We usually try which way the wind bloweth, by casting up grass or chaff, or such light things into the air."-Bacon's Natural History, No. 820, Works, 1740, iii. 168.] 2. ["The World was all before them." Paradise Lost, bk. xii, line 646.] XI. But "why then publish?"-There are no rewards Why drink? Why read ?-To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I 've seen or pondered, sad or cheery; And what I write I cast upon the stream, To swim or sink-I have had at least my dream. XII. I think that were I certain of success, I hardly could compose another line: So long I've battled either more or less, That no defeat can drive me from the Nine. This feeling 't is not easy to express, And yet 't is not affected, I opine. In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing- XIII. Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction: Of course with some reserve and slight restriction, XIV. Love-War-a tempest-surely there's variety; A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild, Society; A slight glance thrown on men of every station. If you have nought else, here 's at least satiety, Both in performance and in preparation; I. ["But why then publish ?-Granville, the polite, And though these lines should only line portmanteaus, Trade will be all the better for these Cantos. XV. The portion of this World which I at present XVI. With much to excite, there 's little to exalt; A kind of common-place, even in their crimes; A want of that true nature which sublimes Whate'er it shows with Truth; a smooth monotony Of character, in those at least who have got any. XVII. Sometimes, indeed, like soldiers off parade, They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill; But then the roll-call draws them back afraid, And they must be or seem what they were: still Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade : But when of the first sight you have had your fill, It palls-at least it did so upon me, This paradise of Pleasure and Ennui. XVIII. When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming, |