Nature is right to rate a worthless son, Though She may find use for him later on. A battered thing like that, long past its prime, Rusted and cankered with unlovely grime, Out of shape and fashion, is good enough To feed Creation’s furnace with the stuff It is ever craving, supply of fresh Material of mortal mind and flesh. You need not be afraid that you, poor Clown, Will—deserve as you may—be shovelled down Into a bottomless pit, or consigned To Hell, as sport for devils there confined. How unless from old clay could new be born? Dust we were, and must, dust to dust, return; Millions before have fallen to it; thus Will numberless worse, better, fall like us! New pots from old— just that is Nature’s view; Still the old stuff, although the style be new. —And Man the stuff; no scrap of Self his own; Nothing fee simple; all on lease, or loan! So complain not, as if to strike away From life ere extreme age, if then, a day Were robbery. We have, all grant, no right O’er the past; Nature, keeping this in sight, Inquires what better title then have we To stake out a claim in futurity. Past—no beginning—future—no end—are one; Neither heeds when Man comes; when he is gone; And you—when time casts you out, why lament, More than its neglect in the old descent? For grievances a fairer you might choose In the undue postponement of repose. Sleep is prized as a respite from Earth’s strife, Yet is checkered by dreams that mimic life; And death loathed as carrion bird of air, Though sleep’s original, with no nightmare! But, perhaps, not delights of life so much You grieve to lose as that to quit your touch Upon life, is to leave you face to face With Hell’s Powers, and at their cruel grace. Dread not; whatever penalties you owe You will pay to the full, but not Below. Hell’s horrors are mere bugbears; and, as they, Shadows from the realities of day; Warnings as well. In no drear realm beneath Wanders Tantalus, with fear-frozen breath Lest the huge rock shall snap the slender thread, And thunder down upon his helpless head. It is a parable. The weight of cares, The uncertainties in human affairs— These men attribute to the wrath of God; Charging Heaven with strokes from Fortune’s rod. Never huge Tityos lay chained upon Torturing bank of pitchy Acheron. Had such monster lived, and his writhing bulk Paved, no mere nine acres, a guilt-logged hulk, But the whole Earth’s circle, neither he could Supply vultures groping his breast for food, Nor his nerves endure ages of the strain Of waiting, with the everlasting pain. The crazed lover in whose heart desire delves, And lust gnaws, is Tityos for ourselves. Look; spy you not passions everywhere Mounting red-billed from entrails to the air? Not in Hell is the stone pushed up, that will Foil Sisyphus by rolling down the hill.