from Canto IX

11

Death laughs—Go ponder o’er the skeleton
     With which men image out the unknown thing
That hides the past world, like to a set sun
     Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring,—
Death laughs at all you weep for:—look upon
     This hourly dread of all, whose threatened sting
Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath!
Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

12

Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!
     And yet was what you are: from ear to ear
It laughs not—there is now no fleshy bar
     So called; the Antic long hath ceased to hear,
But still he smiles; and whether near or far
     He strips from man that mantle (far more dear
Than even the tailor’s) his incarnate skin,
White, black, or copper—the dead bones will grin.

13

And thus Death laughs,—it is sad merriment,
     But still it is so; and with such example
Why should not Life be equally content,
     With his Superior, in a smile to trample
Upon the nothings which are daily spent
     Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample
Than the eternal deluge, which devours
Suns as rays—worlds like atoms—years like hours?

14

“To be or not to be! that is the question,”
     Says Shakespeare, who just now is much in fashion.
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion,
     Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion;
But would much rather have a sound digestion,
    Than Buonaparte’s cancer:—could I dash on
Through fifty victories to shame or fame,
Without a stomach—what were a good name?

15

“Oh dura ilia messorum!”—”Oh
    Ye rigid guts of reapers!”—I translate
For the great benefit of those who know
     What Indigestion is—that inward fate
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.
     A peasant’s sweat is worth his Lord’s estate:
Let this one toil for bread—that rack for rent,
He who sleeps best, may be the most content.

16

“To be or not to be?”—Ere I decide,
     I should be glad to know that which is being?
‘Tis true we speculate both far and wide,
     And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing:
For my part, I’ll enlist on neither side,
     Until I see both sides for once agreeing.
For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,
Rather than Life a mere affair of breath.

17

“Que sais-je?” was the motto of Montaigne,
     As also of the first Academicians:
That all is dubious which Man may attain,
     Was one of their most favourite positions.
There’s no such thing as certainty, that’s plain
     As any of Mortality’s Conditions:
So little do we know what we’re about in
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

18

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,
    Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation;
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?
     Your wise men don’t know much of navigation;
And swimming long in the abyss of thought
     Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station
Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers
Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.

19

“But Heaven,” as Cassio says, “is above all,—
     No more of this then,—let us pray!” We have
Souls to save, since Eve’s slip and Adam’s fall,
     Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,
Besides fish, beasts, and birds. “The Sparrow’s fall
     Is special providence,” though how it gave
Offence, we know not; probably it perched
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched.

20

Oh, ye immortal Gods! what is Theogony?
     Oh, thou too mortal Man! what is Philanthropy?
Oh, World! which was and is, what is Cosmogony?
    Some people have accused me of Misanthropy;
And yet I know no more than the mahogany
    That forms this desk, of what they mean;—Lykanthropy
I comprehend, for without transformation
Men become wolves on any slight occasion.