CXXIV.
We wither from our youth, we gasp away—
Sick—sick; unfound the boon—unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first—
But all too late,—so are we doubly curst.
Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice—'tis the same,
Each idle—and all ill—and none the worst—
For all are meteors with a different name,[1]
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.
CXXV.
Few—none—find what they love or could have loved,
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed
Antipathies—but to recur, ere long,
Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;
And Circumstance, that unspiritual God
And Miscreator, makes and helps along
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,[2]
Whose touch turns Hope to dust,—the dust we all have trod.
- ↑ For all are visions with a separate name.—[D. erased.]
- ↑ [Circumstance is personified as halting Nemesis—
"Pede pœna claudo."
Hor., Odes, III. ii. 32.Perhaps, too, there is the underlying thought of his own lameness, of Mary Chaworth, and of all that might have been, if the "unspiritual God" had willed otherwise.]
