To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain, And give oneself a world of pain; Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot, Imperious, supple -- God knows what, For what's all one to have or not; O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! For 'tis not joy, it is not gain, It is not in itself a bliss, Only it is precisely this That keeps us all alive. To say we truly feel the pain, And quite are sinking with the strain; -- Entirely, simply, undeceived, Believe, and say we ne'er believed The object, e'en were it achieved, A thing we e'en had cared to keep; With heart and soul to hold it cheap, And then to go and try it again; O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! O, 'tis not joy, and 'tis not bliss, Only it is precisely this That keeps us still alive. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VALENTINES TO MY MOTHER: 1876 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 19. SILENT NOON by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH RODGERSON'S DOUG by WILLIAM AITKEN BY WAY OF EXPLANATION by VIRGINIA A. ALLIN TEMPER by CLARA EXLINE BOCKOVEN A COLLOQUY WITH GOD by THOMAS BROWNE |