Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/97

 More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things? Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings. A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may? For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day. And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears: Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years? Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death. Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day; But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May. Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end; For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend. Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides; But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides. O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods! O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods!