BORDER SOUL
and here bely the hope to crave again;
the deeper will, a calmer, quicker flame
before the soul, in torpor, splits in twain.
Here all miseries collide, are blasted out of name;
the cauldron boils, and in it nought but pain!
To hope the Fates have spun a brighter garment
than that of truth, which bickers with content;
No fleece as once adopts a straying eye;
no fortune fills its object with a cause
so grave as this all-gnawing Vice,
self-defacing hatred, and all of spite's death-ice!
Near enough are we to some ill Brink
as to give substance to a physic Pause
and grace our terror with a little ink
and stare ope-mouthed at those chill jaws!
poetry ii. main