Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/43

 What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms, And fill their living mouths with dust of death, And make their habitations in the tombs, And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath, And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error To reach that void of darkness and old terror Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith?

They have much wisdom yet they are not wise, They have much goodness yet they do not well, (The fools we know have their own Paradise, The wicked also have their proper Hell); They have much strength but still their doom is stronger, Much patience but their time endureth longer, Much valour but life mocks it with some spell.

They are most rational and yet insane: An outward madness not to be controlled; A perfect reason in the central brain, Which has no power, but sitteth wan and cold, And sees the madness, and foresees as plainly The ruin in its path, and trieth vainly To cheat itself refusing to behold.