Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/166

144 or of

The trivial round, the common task,

Will furnish all we ought to ask.

Nature is "vainly sweet," and the eye looks out on the recurring pageant of the seasons with unutterable ennui and sadness. And in life the petty circumstances, if congenial, are but playfully pleasant, but if uncongenial, seem surcharged with malice.

The river that runs through life is easily dammed, floods the whole being of a man, and becomes stagnant, whilst poisonous mists lower over him. The joyful current ceases.

It is a common disaster in Russia, the falling into a morbid state. A Russian poet writes:

All earthly perishes, thy mother and thy boyhood.

Thy wife betrays thee, yea, and friends forsake;

But learn, my friend, to taste a different sweetness

Looking to the cold and Arctic seas.

Get in thy ship, set sail for the far Pole,

And live midst walls of ice. Gently forget

How there you loved and struggled;

Forget the passions of the land behind thee;

And to the shudderings of gradual cold

Accustom thy tired soul,

So that of all she left behind her here

She craveth nought whatever,

When thence to thee floods forth the beams of light celestial,

which is a beautiful poem written for those who have become morbid. It is a beloved poem, and you may come across it written laboriously and exquisitely on tinted paper. But those who read it and love it will never "step into the ship, set sail for the far Pole"; it is not an invitation to join