Page:The Last Words of Cleanthes - Longmans Magazine vol 2, pages 500-505.pdf/4

494 Myself have I devoted evermore, With no weak murmurings o'er the poverty Which was my choice. And if my chief return From man were scoffs, cold pity, or neglect, As I for social life were all unfit— No business had on earth—let man progress The better for my life; I, none the worse For his contempt, but more content and glad In that my labours have been more removed From personal profit. My pure 'vantage rests On its negation and its nullity, Which is the Stoic's true—his best reward, Save in the satisfaction of his soul. It may be that some balance here is lost, Since Nature bids each seek his proper good. Every devotion hath inspiring madness— Oft madness of the loftiest, purest scope; But 'tis poor earthliness large gains to crave, Thanks, and prompt recognition from the world Of service and self-sacrifice. Enough— Man knows his own acts, his own secret mind,— Evades, or all the mingled truths confronts.

'Leave me, young man; the tide is rising fast! Good youth, retire—'tis now my will to die. Studies and hardships on extreme age piling Weight upon weight, life's arches are borne down; And as nought useless can, or should exist, I have, for days, all sustenance refused, Press'd to my hands, but thankfully laid down, And now sit here, beside my sand-scoop'd grave, Waiting majestic burial from the sea.

'Nor are tombs wanting. Lo, yon marble rocks!— The architectures of some hand Divine! Intaglios fretted by a thousand years— Inscriptions motto'd by the unseen Powers That guide earth's great mutations; while around me The symbols both of present and of past— Enormous sea-weeds, strombites, and whitening bones, Submarine flowers that lift their welcoming heads, And wail of starv'd birds echoing to the moon,