Yet Life Is Sweet

Yet life is sweet. Thy soul hath breathed along,
Thine eyes have cast their glory on the earth,
Thy foot hath touched it, and thine hour of birth
Didst give a new pulse to the veins of song.

Better to stand amid the toppling towers
Of every valiant hope; a Samson's dream,
Than the deep indolence of Lethe's stream,
The loneliness of slow submerging hours.

Better, oh, better thus to see the wreck,
And to have rocked to motion of the spheres;
Better, oh, better to have trod the deck

Of hope, and sailed the unmanageable years--
Ay, better to have paid the price, and known,
Than never felt this tyrannous Alone!