Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/128

 While he lives let a man be glad, For none hath joy of his death.

Who hath known the pain, the old pain of earth, Or all the travail of the sea, The many ways and waves, the birth Fruitless, the labour nothing worth? Who hath known, who knoweth, O gods? not we.

There is none shall say he hath seen, There is none he hath known. Though he saith, Lo, a lord have I been, I have reaped and sown; I have seen the desire of mine eyes, The beginning of love, The season of kisses and sighs And the end thereof. I have known the ways of the sea, All the perilous ways, Strange winds have spoken with me, And the tongues of strange days. I have hewn the pine for ships; Where steeds run arow, I have seen from their bridled lips Foam blown as the snow.