The last point now:--thou dost except a case-- Holding joy not impossible to one With artist-gifts--to such a man as I 275 Who leave behind me living works indeed; For, such a poem, such a painting lives. What? Dost thou verily trip upon a word, Confound the accurate view of what joy is (Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine) 280 With feeling joy? confound the knowing how And showing how to live (my faculty) With actually living?--Otherwise Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king? Because in my great epos I display 285 How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act-- Is this as though I acted? If I paint, Carve the young Phoebus, am I therefore young? Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself The many years of pain that taught me art! 290 Indeed, to know is something, and to prove How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more: But, knowing naught, to enjoy is something, too. Yon rower, with the molded muscles there, Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I. 295 I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode. I get to sing of love, when grown too gray For being beloved: she turns to that young man, The muscles all a-ripple on his back. I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king! 300 "But," sayest thou--and I marvel, I repeat, To find thee trip on such a mere word--"what Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die: Sappho survives, because we sing her songs, And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!" 305 Why, if they live still, let them come and take Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup, Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive? Say rather that my fate is deadlier still, In this, that every day my sense of joy 310 Grows more acute, my soul (intensified By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen; While every day my hairs fall more and more, My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase-- The horror quickening still from year to year, 315 The consummation coming past escape, When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy-- When all my works wherein I prove my worth, Being present still to mock me in men's mouths, Alive still, in the praise of such as thou, 320 I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man, The man who loved his life so overmuch, Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible, I dare at times imagine to my need Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, 325 Unlimited in capability For joy, as this is in desire for joy, --To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us: That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait On purpose to make prized the life at large-- 330