Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/137

CANTO II.] Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,

The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit

And Passion's host, that never brooked control:

Can all Saint, Sage, or Sophist ever writ,

People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

VII.

Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son!

"All that we know is, nothing can be known."

Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?

Each hath its pang, but feeble sufferers groan

With brain-born dreams of Evil all their own.

Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best;

Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron:

There no forced banquet claims the sated guest,

But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome Rest.

VIII.

Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there be

A land of Souls beyond that sable shore,