And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life, Still, no. If care where is the sign? I ask, And get no answer, and agree in sum, O king, with thy profound discouragement, Who seest the wider but to sigh the more. Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well. The last point now. Thou dost except a caseHolding joy not impossible to one With artist-gifts-to such a man as I Who leave behind me living works indeed; For, such a poem, such a painting lives. Confound the accurate view of what joy is And showing how to live (my faculty) With actually living?-Otherwise Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king? Because in my great epos I display How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act— Carve the young Phœbus, am I therefore young? I can write love-odes: thy fair slave 's an ode. I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king! By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hair falls more and more, When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy— For joy, as this is in desire for joy, -To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us : Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no ! Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas, He must have done so, were it possible! Live long and happy, and in that thought die, Glad for what was ! Farewell. And for the rest, I cannot tell thy messenger aright Where to deliver what he bears of thine To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame I know not, nor am troubled much to know. As if his answer could impose at all! He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander) Their doctrine could be held by no sane man. INSTANS TYRANNUS. I Of the million or two, more or less, I rule and possess, One man, for some cause undefined, II I struck him, he grovelled of course I pinned him to earth with my weight And persistence of hate; And he lay, would not moan, would not curse, As his lot might be worse. III "Were the object less mean, would he stand "At the swing of my hand! "For obscurity helps him, and blots "The hole where he squats." So, I set my five wits on the stretch To inveigle the wretch. All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw, Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth: IV Had he kith now or kin, were access To his heart, did I press : Just a son or a mother to seize ! No such booty as these. Were it simply a friend to pursue 'Mid my million or two, Who could pay me, in person or pelf, What he owes me himself! No: I could not but smile through my chafe : For the fellow lay safe As his mates do, the midge and the nit, -Through minuteness, to wit. V Then a humour more great took its place At the thought of his face : The droop, the low cares of the mouth, The trouble uncouth 'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain To put out of its pain. And, "no!" I admonished myself, "Is one mocked by an elf, "Is one baffled by toad or by rat? "The gravamen 's in that! "How the lion, who crouches to suit "His back to my foot, "Would admire that I stand in debate! "But the small turns the great "If it vexes you,—that is the thing! "Toad or rat vex the king? "Though I waste half my realm to unearth "Toad or rat, 't is well worth!" |