Oh that I could glow like this mountain! Oh that my heart bounded with the swell of the sea! Oh that my soul were full of light as the stars! Oh that it brooded over the world like the air! But no, this heart will glow no more; thou art A living man no more, Empedocles! Nothing but a devouring flame of thought,-- But a naked, eternally restless mind! _After a pause_:-- To the elements it came from, Every thing will return,-- Our bodies to earth, Our blood to water, Heat to fire, Breath to air: They were well born, they will be well entombed. But mind?... And we might gladly share the fruitful stir Down in our mother earth’s miraculous womb; Well would it be With what rolled of us in the stormy main; We might have joy, blent with the all-bathing air, Or with the nimble, radiant life of fire. But mind, but thought, If these have been the master part of us,-- Where will _they_ find their parent element? What will receive _them_, who will call _them_ home? But we shall still be in them, and they in us; And we shall be the strangers of the world; And they will be our lords, as they are now, And keep us prisoners of our consciousness, And never let us clasp and feel the All But through their forms, and modes, and stifling veils. And we shall be unsatisfied as now; And we shall feel the agony of thirst, The ineffable longing for the life of life Baffled forever; and still thought and mind Will hurry us with them on their homeless march Over the unallied unopening earth, Over the unrecognizing sea; while air Will blow us fiercely back to sea and earth, And fire repel us from its living waves. And then we shall unwillingly return Back to this meadow of calamity, This uncongenial place, this human life: And in our individual human state Go through the sad probation all again, To see if we will poise our life at last, To see if we will now at last be true To our own only true, deep-buried selves, Being one with which, we are one with the whole world; Or whether we will once more fall away Into the bondage of the flesh or mind, Some slough of sense, or some fantastic maze Forged by the imperious lonely thinking-power. And each succeeding age in which we are born Will have more peril for us than the last; Will goad our senses with a sharper spur, Will fret our minds to an intenser play, Will make ourselves harder to be discerned. And we shall struggle a while, gasp and rebel; And we shall fly for refuge to past times, Their soul of unworn youth, their breath of greatness; And the reality will pluck us back, Knead us in its hot hand, and change our nature. And we shall feel our powers of effort flag, And rally them for one last fight--and fail;