How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

White shall not neutralize the black, nor good compensate bad in man, absolve him so; life's business being just the terrible choice.

It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.

Rejoice that man is hurled, From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled!

Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph?

What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.

I hold that a man should strive to the uttermost for his life's set prize.