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!