XXVII
Why should you harass with wicked hatred
Your spirits weary, as the waves of ocean
Set a-tossing the ice-cold sea,
Urged by the blast? Why do you blame,
Your fate reproach that she has no power?
Why can you not bide the bitter coming
Of common death by God created
When he is drawing each day towards you?
Can you not perceive that he is ever pursuing
Each thing begotten, of earthly bearing,
Beasts and birds? Death also is busy
After mankind, all over this earth,
The dreadful huntsman, holding the chase;
Nor will he truly the trail abandon
Before that he catch at last the quarry
That he was pursuing. Oh! it is pitiful
That borough-dwellers cannot bide him,
But luckless mortals like the race of birds
Are flying onward fain to meet him,
Or as beasts of the forest that are ever fighting,
Each one seeking to slay the other.
But it is wicked for any creature
That towards another in his inmost temper
He should hatred bear, like bird or beast
But most right it were that every mortal
To others should render their due reward,
