The Project Gutenberg eBook ofLamentsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: LamentsAuthor: Jan KochanowskiTranslator: Dorothea PrallRelease date: November 6, 2008 [eBook #27179]Most recently updated: January 4, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jimmy O'Regan (Produced from images generouslymade available by Columbia University Libraries)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAMENTS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: LamentsAuthor: Jan KochanowskiTranslator: Dorothea PrallRelease date: November 6, 2008 [eBook #27179]Most recently updated: January 4, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Jimmy O'Regan (Produced from images generouslymade available by Columbia University Libraries)
Title: Laments
Author: Jan KochanowskiTranslator: Dorothea Prall
Author: Jan Kochanowski
Translator: Dorothea Prall
Release date: November 6, 2008 [eBook #27179]Most recently updated: January 4, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Jimmy O'Regan (Produced from images generouslymade available by Columbia University Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAMENTS ***
INTRODUCTORY NOTELAMENT ILAMENT IILAMENT IIILAMENT IVLAMENT VLAMENT VILAMENT VIILAMENT VIIILAMENT IXLAMENT XLAMENT XILAMENT XIILAMENT XIIILAMENT XIVLAMENT XVLAMENT XVILAMENT XVIILAMENT XVIIILAMENT XIX
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESSBERKELEY1920
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYLLABUS SERIES NO. 122
Jan Kochanowski (1530-84) was the greatest poet of Poland during its existence as an independent kingdom. HisLamentsare his masterpiece, the choicest work of Polish lyric poetry before the time of Mickiewicz.
Kochanowski was a learned poet of the Renaissance, drawing his inspiration from the literatures of Greece and Rome. He was also a man of sincere piety, famous for his translation of the Psalms into his native language. In hisLaments, written in memory of his little daughter Ursula, who died in 1579 at the age of thirty months, he expresses the deepest personal emotion through the medium of a literary style that had been developed by long years of study. TheLaments, to be sure, are not based on any classic model and they contain few direct imitations of the classical poets, though it may be noted that the concluding couplet ofLament XVis translated from theGreek Anthology. On the other hand they are interspersed with continual references to classic story; and, more important, are filled with the atmosphere of the Stoic philosophy, derived from Cicero and Seneca. And along with this austere teaching there runs through them a warmer tone of Christian hope and trust;Lament XVIIIis in spirit a psalm. To us of today, however, these poems appeal less by their formal perfection, by their learning, or by their religious tone, than by their exquisite humanity. Kochanowski's sincerity of grief, his fatherly love for his baby girl, after more than three centuries have not lost their power to touch our hearts. In theLamentsKochanowski embodied a wholesome ideal of life such as animated the finest spirits of Poland in the years of its greatest glory, a spirit both humanistic and universally human.
G. R. NOYES.
TO URSULA KOCHANOWSKI
A CHARMING, MERRY, GIFTED CHILD, WHO, AFTER SHOWING GREAT PROMISE OF ALL MAIDENLY VIRTUES AND TALENTS, SUDDENLY, PREMATURELY, IN HER UNRIPE YEARS, TO THE GREAT AND UNBEARABLE GRIEF OF HER PARENTS, DEPARTED HENCE.
WRITTEN WITH TEARS FOR HIS BELOVED LITTLE GIRL BY JAN KOCHANOWSKI, HER HAPLESS FATHER.
THOU ART NO MORE, MY URSULA.
Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipseJuppiter auctiferas lustravit lumine terras.
Come, Heraclitus and Simonides,Come with your weeping and sad elegies:Ye griefs and sorrows, come from all the landsWherein ye sigh and wail and wring your hands:Gather ye here within my house todayAnd help me mourn my sweet, whom in her MayUngodly Death hath ta'en to his estate,Leaving me on a sudden desolate.'Tis so a serpent glides on some shy nestAnd, of the tiny nightingales possessed,Doth glut its throat, though, frenzied with her fear,The mother bird doth beat and twitter nearAnd strike the monster, till it turns and gapesTo swallow her, and she but just escapes."'Tis vain to weep," my friends perchance will say.Dear God, is aught in life not vain, then? Nay,Seek to lie soft, yet thorns will prickly be:The life of man is naught but vanity.Ah, which were better, then—to seek reliefIn tears, or sternly strive to conquer grief?
If I had ever thought to write in praiseOf little children and their simple ways,Far rather had I fashioned cradle verseTo rock to slumber, or the songs a nurseMight croon above the baby on her breast.Setting her charge's short-lived woes at rest.For much more useful are such trifling tasksThan that which sad misfortune this day asks:To weep o'er thy deaf grave, dear maiden mine.And wail the harshness of grim Proserpine.But now I have no choice of subject: thenI shunned a theme scarce fitting riper men,And now disaster drives me on by forceTo songs unheeded by the great concourseOf mortals. Verses that I would not singThe living, to the dead I needs must bring.Yet though I dry the marrow from my bones,Weeping another's death, my grief atonesNo whit. All forms of human doomArouse but transient thoughts of joy or gloom.O law unjust, O grimmest of all maids,Inexorable princess of the shades!For, Ursula, thou hadst but tasted timeAnd art departed long before thy prime.Thou hardly knewest that the sun was brightEre thou didst vanish to the halls of night.I would thou hadst not lived that little breath—What didst thou know, but only birth, then death?And all the joy a loving child should bringHer parents, is become their bitterest sting.
So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir;Thy father's halls, then, were not broad and fairEnough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet.True, there was nothing, nothing in them meetFor thy swift-budding reason, that foretoldVirtues the future years would yet unfold.Thy words, thy archness, every turn and bow—How sick at heart without them am I now!Nay, little comfort, never more shall IBehold thee and thy darling drollery.What may I do but only follow onAlong the path where earlier thou hast gone.And at its end do thou, with all thy charms,Cast round thy father's neck thy tender arms.
Thou hast constrained mine eyes, unholy Death,To watch my dear child breathe her dying breath:To watch thee shake the fruit unripe and clingingWhile fear and grief her parents' hearts were wringing.Ah, never, never could my well-loved childHave died and left her father reconciled:Never but with a heart like heavy leadCould I have watched her go, abandonèd.And yet at no time could her death have broughtMore cruel ache than now, nor bitterer thought;For had God granted to her ample daysI might have walked with her down flowered waysAnd left this life at last, content, descendingTo realms of dark Persephone, the all-ending,Without such grievous sorrow in my heart,Of which earth holdeth not the counterpart.I marvel not that Niobe, aloneAmid her dear, dead children, turned to stone.
Just as a little olive offshoot growsBeneath its orchard elders' shady rows,No budding leaf as yet, no branching limb,Only a rod uprising, virgin-slim—Then if the busy gardener, weeding outSharp thorns and nettles, cuts the little sprout,It fades and, losing all its living hue,Drops by the mother from whose roots it grew:So was it with my Ursula, my dear;A little space she grew beside us here,Then Death came, breathing pestilence, and sheFell, stricken lifeless, by her parent tree.Persephone, Persephone, this flowOf barren tears! How couldst thou will it so?
Dear little Slavic Sappho, we had thought,Hearing thy songs so sweetly, deftly wrought,That thou shouldst have an heritage one dayBeyond thy father's lands: his lute to play.For not an hour of daylight's joyous roundBut thou didst fill it full of lovely sound,Just as the nightingale doth scatter pleasureUpon the dark, in glad unstinted measure.Then Death came stalking near thee, timid thing,And thou in sudden terror tookest wing.Ah, that delight, it was not overlongAnd I pay dear with sorrow for brief song.Thou still wert singing when thou cam'st to die;Kissing thy mother, thus thou saidst good-bye:"My mother, I shall serve thee now no moreNor sit about thy table's charming store;I must lay down my keys to go from here,To leave the mansion of my parents dear."This and what sorrow now will let me tellNo longer, were my darling's last farewell.Ah, strong her mother's heart, to feel the painOf those last words and not to burst in twain.
Sad trinkets of my little daughter, dressesThat touched her like caresses,Why do you draw my mournful eyes? To borrowA newer weight of sorrow?No longer will you clothe her form, to fold herAround, and wrap her, hold her.A hard, unwaking sleep has overpoweredHer limbs, and now the floweredCool muslin and the ribbon snoods are bootless,The gilded girdles fruitless.My little girl, 'twas to a bed far otherThat one day thy poor motherHad thought to lead thee, and this simple dowerSuits not the bridal hour;A tiny shroud and gown of her own sewingShe gives thee at thy going.Thy rather brings a clod of earth, a somberPillow for thy last slumber.And so a single casket, scant of measure,Locks thee and all thy treasure.
Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,One little soul had filled so great a space.For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all,Running through every nook of house and hall.Thou wouldst not have thy mother grieve, nor letThy father with too solemn thinking fretHis head, but thou must kiss them, daughter mine,And all with that entrancing laugh of thine!Now on the house has fallen a dumb blight:Thou wilt not come with archness and delight,But every corner lodges lurking griefAnd all in vain the heart would seek relief.
Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much goldIf all they say of thee is truly told:That thou canst root out from the mind the hostOf longings and canst change a man almostInto an angel whom no grief can sap,Who is not prone to fear nor evil hap.Thou seest all things human as they are—Trifles. Thou bearest in thy breast a starFixed and tranquil, and dost contemplateDeath unafraid, still calm, inviolate.Of riches, one thing thou dost hold the measure:Proportion to man's needs—not gold nor treasure;Thy searching eyes have power to beholdThe beggar housed beneath the roof of gold,Nor dost thou grudge the poor man fame as blestIf he but hearken him to thy behest.Oh, hapless, hapless man am I, who soughtIf I might gain thy thresholds by much thought,Cast down from thy last steps after so long,But one amid the countless, hopeless throng!
My dear delight, my Ursula, and whereArt thou departed, to what land, what sphere?High o'er the heavens wert thou borne, to standOne little cherub midst the cherub band?Or dost thou laugh in Paradise, or nowUpon the Islands of the Blest art thou?Or in his ferry o'er the gloomy waterDoes Charon bear thee onward, little daughter?And having drunken of forgetfulnessArt thou unwitting of my sore distress?Or, casting off thy human, maiden veil,Art thou enfeathered in some nightingale?Or in grim Purgatory must thou stayUntil some tiniest stain be washed away?Or hast returned again to where thou wertEre thou wast born to bring me heavy hurt?Where'er thou art, ah! pity, comfort me;And if not in thine own entirety,Yet come before mine eyes a moment's spaceIn some sweet dream that shadoweth thy grace.
"Virtue is but a trifle!" Brutus saidIn his defeat; nor was he cozenèd.What man did his own goodness e'er advanceOr piety preserve from evil chance?Some unknown foe confuses men's affairs;For good and bad alike it nothing cares.Where blows its breath, no man can flee away;Both false and righteous it hath power to stay.Yet still we vaunt us of our mighty mindIn idle arrogance among our kind;And still we gaze on heaven and think we seeThe Lord and his all-holy mystery.Nay, human eyes are all too dull; light dreamsAmuse and cheat us with what only seems.Ah, dost thou rob me, Grief, my safeguards spurning,Of both my darling and my trust in learning?
I think no father under any skyMore fondly loved a daughter than did I,And scarcely ever has a child been bornWhose loss her parents could more justly mourn.Unspoiled and neat, obedient at all times,She seemed already versed in songs and rhymes,And with a highborn courtesy and art,Though but a babe, she played a maiden's part.Discreet and modest, sociable and freeFrom jealous habits, docile, mannerly,She never thought to taste her morning fareUntil she should have said her morning prayer;She never went to sleep at night untilShe had prayed God to save us all from ill.She used to run to meet her father whenHe came from any journey home again;She loved to work and to anticipateThe servants of the house ere they could waitUpon her parents. This she had begunWhen thirty months their little course had run.So many virtues and such active zealHer youth could not sustain; she fell from wealEre harvest. Little ear of wheat, thy primeWas distant; 'tis before thy proper timeI sow thee once again in the sad earth,Knowing I bury with thee hope and mirth.For thou wilt not spring up when blossoms quickenBut leave mine eyes forever sorrow-stricken.
Ursula, winsome child, I would that IHad never had thee if thou wert to dieSo early. For with lasting grief I pay,Now thou hast left me, for thy sweet, brief stay.Thou didst delude me like a dream by nightThat shines in golden fullness on the sight,Then vanishes, and to the man awakeLeaves only of its treasures much heartbreak.So hast thou done to me, belovèd cheat:Thou madest with high hope my heart to beatAnd then didst hurry off and bear with theeAll of the gladness thou once gavest me.'Tis half my heart I lack through this thy takingAnd what is left is good for naught but aching.Stonecutters, set me up a carven stoneAnd let this sad inscription run thereon:Ursula Kochanowski lieth here,Her father's sorrow and her father's dear;For heedless Death hath acted here crisscross:She should have mourned my death, not I her loss.
Where are those gates through which so long agoOrpheus descended to the realms belowTo seek his lost one? Little daughter, IWould find that path and pass that ford wherebyThe grim-faced boatman ferries pallid shadesAnd drives them forth to joyless cypress glades.But do thou not desert me, lovely lute!Be thou the furtherance of my mournful suitBefore dread Pluto, till he shall give earTo our complaints and render up my dear.To his dim dwelling all men must repair,And so must she, her father's joy and heir;But let him grant the fruit now scarce in flowerTo fill and ripen till the harvest hour!Yet if that god doth bear a heart withinSo hard that one in grief can nothing win,What can I but renounce this upper airAnd lose my soul, but also lose my care.
Golden-locked Erato, and thou, sweet lute,The comfort of the sad and destitute,Calm thou my sorrow, lest I too becomeA marble pillar shedding through the dumbBut living stone my almost bloody tears,A monument of grief for coming years.For when we think of mankind's evil chanceDoes not our private grief gain temperance?Unhappy mother (if 'tis evil hapWe blame when caught in our own folly's trap)Where are thy sons and daughters, seven each,The joyful cause of thy too boastful speech?I see their fourteen stones, and thou, alas,Who from thy misery wouldst gladly passTo death, dost kiss the tombs, O wretched one,Where lies thy fruit so cruelly undone.Thus blossoms fall where some keen sickle passesAnd so, when rain doth level them, green grasses.What hope canst thou yet harbor in thee? WhyDost thou not drive thy sorrow hence and die?And thy swift arrows, Phoebus, what do they?And thine unerring bow, Diana? SlayHer, ye avenging gods, if not in rage,Then out of pity for her desolate age.A punishment for pride before unknownHath fallen: Niobe is turned to stone,And borne in whirlwind arms o'er seas and lands,On Sipylus in deathless marble stands.Yet from her living wounds a crystal fountainOf tears flows through the rock and down the mountain,Whence beast and bird may drink; but she, in chains,Fixed in the path of all the winds remains.This tomb holds naught, this woman hath no tomb:To be both grave and body is her doom.
Misfortune hath constrainèd meTo leave the lute and poetry,Nor can I from their easing borrowSleep for my sorrow.
Do I see true, or hath a dreamFlown forth from ivory gates to gleamIn phantom gold, before forsakingIts poor cheat, waking?
Oh, mad, mistaken humankind,'Tis easy triumph for the mindWhile yet no ill adventure strikes usAnd naught mislikes us.
In plenty we praise poverty,'Mid pleasures we hold grief to be(And even death, ere it shall stifleOur breath) a trifle.
But when the grudging spinner scantsHer thread and fate no surcease grantsFrom grief most deep and need most wearing,Less calm our bearing.
Ah, Tully, thou didst flee from RomeWith weeping, who didst say his homeThe wise man found in any station,In any nation.
And why dost mourn thy daughter soWhen thou hast said the only woeThat man need dread is base dishonor?—Why sorrow on her?
Death, thou hast said, can terrifyThe godless man alone. Then whySo loth, the pay for boldness giving,To leave off living?
Thy words, that have persuaded men,Persuade not thee, angelic pen;Disaster findeth thy defenses,Like mine, pretenses.
Soft stone is man: he takes the linesThat Fortune's cutting tool designs.To press the wounds wherewith she graves us,Racks us or saves us?
Time, father of forgetfulnessSo longed for now in my distress,Since wisdom nor the saints can steel me,Oh, do thou heal me!
God hath laid his hand on me:He hath taken all my glee,And my spirit's emptied cupSoon must give its life-blood up.
If the sun doth wake and rise,If it sink in gilded skies,All alike my heart doth ache,Comfort it can never take.
From my eyelids there do flowTears, and I must weep e'en soEver, ever. Lord of Light,Who can hide him from thy sight!
Though we shun the stormy sea,Though from war's affray we flee,Yet misfortune shows her faceHowsoe'er concealed our place.
Mine a life so far from fameFew there were could know my name;Evil hap and jealousyHad no way of harming me.
But the Lord, who doth disdainFlimsy safeguards raised by man,Struck a blow more swift and sureIn that I was more secure.
Poor philosophy, so lateOf its power wont to prate,Showeth its incompetenceNow that joy proceedeth hence.
Sometimes still it strives to proveHeavy care it can remove;But its little weight doth failTo raise sorrow in the scale.
Idle is the foolish claimHarm can have another name:He who laughs when he is sad,I should say was only mad.
Him who tries to prove our tearsTrifles, I will lend mine ears;But my sorrow he therebyDoth not check, but magnify.
Choice I have none, I must needsWeep if all my spirit bleeds.Calling it a graceless partOnly stabs anew my heart.
All such medicine, dear Lord,Is another, sharper sword.Who my healing would insureWill seek out a gentler cure.
Let my tears prolong their flow.Wisdom, I most truly know,Hath no power to console:Only God can make me whole.
We are thy thankless children, gracious Lord.The good thou dost affordLightly do we employ,All careless of the one who giveth joy.
We heed not him from whom delights do flow.Until they fade and goWe take no thought to renderThat gratitude we owe the bounteous sender.
Yet keep us in thy care. Let not our prideCause thee, dear God, to hideThe glory of thy beauty:Chasten us till we shall recall our duty.
Yet punish us as with a father's hand.We mites, cannot withstandThine anger; we are snow,Thy wrath, the sun that melts us in its glow.
Make us not perish thus, eternal God,From thy too heavy rod.Recall that thy disdainAlone doth give thy children bitter pain.
Yet I do know thy mercy doth aboundWhile yet the spheres turn round,And thou wilt never castWithout the man who humbles him at last.
Though great and many my transgressions are,Thy goodness greater farThan mine iniquity:Lord, manifest thy mercy unto me!
The Dream
Long through the night hours sorrow was my guestAnd would not let my fainting body rest,Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominionsFlew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.And then it was my mother did appearBefore mine eyes in vision doubly dear;For in her arms she held my darling one,My Ursula, just as she used to runTo me at dawn to say her morning prayer,In her white nightgown, with her curling hairFraming her rosy face, her eyes aboutTo laugh, like flowers only halfway out."Art thou still sorrowing, my son?" Thus spokeMy mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more:"It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,Have reached the hidden chambers of the dead,Till I have come to grant thee some small graceAnd let thee gaze upon thy daughter's face,That it may calm thy heart in some degreeAnd check the grief that imperceptiblyDoth gnaw away thy health and leave thee sick,Like fire that turns to ashes a dry wick.Dost thou believe the dead have perished quite,Their sun gone down in an eternal night?Ah no, we have a being far more splendidNow that our bodies' coarser claims are ended.Though dust returns to dust, the spirit, givenA life eternal, must go back to heaven,And little Ursula hath not gone outForever like a torch. Nay, cease thy doubt,For I have brought her hither in the guiseShe used to wear before thy mortal eyes,Though mid the deathless angels, brighter farShe shineth as the lovely morning star;And still she offers up her prayers for youAs here on earth, when yet no words she knew.If herefrom springs thy sorrow, that her yearsWere broken off before all that endearsA life on earth to mortals she might prove—Yet think how empty the delights that moveThe minds of men, delights that must give placeAt last to sorrow, as in thine own case.Did then thy little girl such joy conferThat all the comfort thou didst find in herCould parallel thine anguish of today?Thou canst not answer otherwise than nay.Then fret not that so early death has comeTo what was dearest thee in Christendom.She did not leave a land of much delight,But one of toil and grief and evil blightSo plenteous, that all which men can holdOf their so transitory blessings, gold,Must lose its value through this base alloy,This knowledge of the grief that follows joy."Why do we weep, great God? That with her dowerShe bought herself no lord, that she might cowerBefore upbraidings from her husband's kin?That she knew not the pangs that usher inThe newborn child? And that she could not know,Like her poor mother, if more racking woeIt were to bear or bury them? Ah, meetAre such delights to make the world more sweet!But heaven hath purer, surer happiness,Free from all intermingling of distress.Care rules not here and here we know not toil,Misfortune and disaster do not spoil.Here sickness can not enter nor old age,And death, tear-nourished, hath no pasturage.We live a life of endless joy that bringsGood thoughts; we know the causes of all things.The sun shines on forever here, its lightUnconquered by impenetrable night;And the Creator in his majestyInvisible to mortals, we may see.Then turn thy meditations hither, towardsThis changeless gladness and these rich rewards.Thou know'st the world, what love of it can do:Found thou thine efforts on a base more true.Thy little girl hath chosen well her part,Thou may'st believe, as one about to startFor the first time upon the stormy sea,Beholding there great flux and jeopardy,Returneth to the shore; while those that raiseTheir sails, the wind or some blind crag betrays,And this one dies from hunger, that from cold:Scarce one escapes the perils manifold.So she, who, though her years should have surpassedThat ancient Sybil, must have died at last,Preferred that ending to anticipateBefore she knew the ills of man's estate.For some are left without their parents' care,To know how sore an orphan's lot to bear;One girl must marry headlong, and then rueHer dower given up to God knows who;Some maids are seized by their own countrymen,Others, made captive by the Tatar clanAnd held thus in a pagan, shameful thrall,Must drink their tears till death comes ending all."But this thy little child need fear no more,Who, taken early up to heaven's door,Could walk all glad and shining-pure within,Her soul still innocent of earthly sin.Doubt not, my son, that all is well with her,And let not sorrow be thy conqueror.Reason and self-command are precious stillAnd yielding all to blighted hope is ill.Be in this matter thine own lord, althoughThy longed-for happiness thou must forego.For man is born exposed to circumstance,To be the target of all evil chance,And if we like it or we like it notWe still can not escape our destined lot.Nor hath misfortune singled thee, my son;It lays its burdens upon every one.Thy little child was mortal as thou art,She ran her given course and did depart;And if that course was brief, yet who can sayThat she would have been happier to stay?The ways of God are past our finding out,Yet what He holds as good shall we misdoubt?And when the spirit leaves us, it is vainTo weep so long; it will not come again.And herein man is hardly just to fate,To bear in mind what is unfortunateIn life and to forget all that transpiresIn full accordance with his own desires.And such is Fortune's power, dearest son,That we should not lament when she hath doneA bitter turn, but thank her in that sheHath held her hand from greater injury.So, yielding to the common order, barThy heart to more disasters than now are;Gaze at the happiness thou dost retain:What is not loss, that must be rated gain."And finally, what profits the expenseOf thy long labor and the years gone hence,While thou didst spend thyself upon thy booksAnd knewest scarce how lightsome pleasure looks?Now from thy grafting pluck the fruit and saveSomething of value from frail nature's grave.To other men in sorrow thou hast shownThe comfort left them: hast none for thine own?Now, master, heal thyself: time is the cureFor all; but he whose wisdom doth abjureThe common ways, he should anticipateThe healing for which other men must wait.What is time's cunning? That it drives awayOur former haps with newer ones, more gay,Or like the old. So man by taking thoughtPerceives them ere their accidents are wrought,And by such thinking banishes the pastAnd views the future, quiet and steadfast.Then bear man's portion like a man, my son,The Lord of grief and comfort is but one."Then I awoke, and know not if to deemThis truth itself, or but a passing dream.