Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/310

286 Prevails:—whate'er the nations say, His purpose holds its darkling way.

What thing his nod hath ratified
 * Stands fast, and moves with firm sure tread,

Nor sways, nor swerves, nor starts aside:
 * A mazy thicket, hard to thread,

A labyrinth undiscovered still. The far-drawn windings of his will.

Down from proud towers of hope
 * He throws infatuate men.

Nor needs, to reach his boundless scope.
 * The undistressful pain

Of Godlike effort; on his holy seat He thinks, and all is done, even as him seems most meet.

The other passage is put in the mouth of a chorus of old men, who are perplexed by what is virtually the problem of evil: