At once our eyes grow clear! We see, in blank dismay, Year posting after year, Sense after sense decay; Our shivering heart is mined by secret discontent. Yet still, in spite of truth, In spite of hopes entombed, That longing of our youth Burns ever unconsumed, Still hungrier for delight as delights grow more rare. We pause; we hush our heart, And thus address the gods:-- “The world hath failed to impart The joy our youth forebodes, Failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear. “Changeful till now, we still Looked on to something new; Let us, with changeless will, Henceforth look on to you, To find with you the joy we in vain here require!” Fools! That so often here Happiness mocked our prayer, I think, might make us fear A like event elsewhere; Make us not fly to dreams, but moderate desire. And yet, for those who know Themselves, who wisely take Their way through life, and bow To what they cannot break, Why should I say that life need yield but _moderate_ bliss? Shall we, with temper spoiled, Health sapped by living ill, And judgment all embroiled By sadness and self-will,-- Shall we judge what for man is not true bliss or is? Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done To have advanced true friends, and beat down baffling foes,-- That we must feign a bliss Of doubtful future date, And, while we dream on this, Lose all our present state, And relegate to worlds yet distant our repose? Not much, I know, you prize What pleasures may be had, Who look on life with eyes Estranged, like mine, and sad; And yet the village-churl feels the truth more than you; Who’s loath to leave this life Which to him little yields,-- His hard-tasked sunburnt wife, His often-labored fields, The boors with whom he talked, the country-spots he knew. But thou, because thou hear’st Men scoff at heaven and fate, Because the gods thou fear’st Fail to make blest thy state, Tremblest, and wilt not dare to trust the joys there are! I say: Fear not! Life still Leaves human effort scope. But, since life teems with ill, Nurse no extravagant hope; Because thou must not dream, thou need’st not then despair! _A long pause._ _At the end of it the notes of a harp below are again heard, and_ CALLICLES _sings_:--