I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep. Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove: But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love. After speaking to the goddess of death, he speaks thus to Christ: Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take, The laurel, the palms and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake; Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath; And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death; All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre, Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire. More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things? Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings. A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may? For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day. And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears: Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years? Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fulness of death. Or, in other words, the pagan says: "O Christ, you would wish to take everything from us, yet some things there are which you cannot take: not the inspiration of the poet, nor the spirit of art, nor the glory of heroism, nor the dreams of youth and love, nor the great and gracious gifts of time--the beauty of the seasons, the splendour of night and day. All these you cannot deprive us of, though you wish to; and what is better than these? Can you give us anything more precious? Assuredly you cannot. For these things are fitted to human life; and what do we know about any other life? Life passes quickly; why should we make it miserable with the evil dreams of a religion of sorrow? Short enough is the time in which we have pleasure, and the world is already full enough of pain; wherefore should we try to make ourselves still more unhappy than we already are? Yet you have conquered; you have destroyed the beauty of life; you have made the world seem grey and old, that was so beautiful and eternally young. You have made us drink the waters of forgetfulness and eat the food of death. For your religion is a religion of death, not of life; you yourself and the Christian gods are figures of death, not figures of life."