Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/295

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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,