Thine is the adventure, thine the victory, Well has thy fortune turned the dice for thee: Thou on that angel's face mayest feed thy eyes, In prison, no; but blissful paradise! Thou daily seest that sun of beauty shine, And lovest at least in love's extremest line. I mourn in absence, love's eternal night; And who can tell but since thou hast her sight, And art a comely, young, and valiant knight, Fortune (a various power) may cease to frown, And by some ways unknown thy wishes crown? But I, the most forlorn of human kind, Nor help can hope nor remedy can find; But doomed to drag my loathsome life in care, For my reward, must end it in despair. Fire, water, air, and earth, and force of fates That governs all, and Heaven that all creates, Nor art, nor Nature's hand can ease my grief; Nothing but death, the wretch's last relief: Then farewell youth, and all the joys that dwell With youth and life, and life itself, farewell! But why, alas! do mortal men in vain Of Fortune, Fate, or Providence complain? God gives us what he knows our wants require, And better things than those which we desire: Some pray for riches; riches they obtain; But, watched by robbers, for their wealth are slain; Some pray from prison to be freed; and come, When guilty of their vows, to fall at home; Murdered by those they trusted with their life, A favoured servant or a bosom wife. Such dear-bought blessings happen every day, Because we know not for what things to pray. Like drunken sots about the streets we roam: "Well knows the sot he has a certain home, Yet knows not how to find the uncertain place, And blunders on and staggers every pace. Thus all seek happiness; but few can find, For far the greater part of men are blind. This is my case, who thought our utmost good Was in one word of freedom understood: The fatal blessing came: from prison free, I starve abroad, and lose the sight of Emily."