Fording

“ Which Fate’s own acts as if in itself shows;
And men, like children, seeing the image there,
Take place for cause and make our will Fate bear.
XXXV. Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad.
The outer day, void statue of lit blue,
Is altogether outward, other, glad
At mere being not-I (so my aches construe) .
I, that have failed in everything, bewail
Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed,
For in the general fate what is’t to fail?
Why, fate being past for Fate, ’tis but to have failed.
Whatever hap-or stop, what matters it,
Sith to the mattering our will bringeth nought? ”

“ The taking up and laying down of the burden, the beginning and the ending of the spinning—for, from our first moments, our hands are bound to the loom; we must weave our own webs, but Fate doles out the thread and Circumstance dyes the fabric, not as we will, but as Destiny designs, and Death spares no pattern, however lovely, but stops the shuttle when our reel of thread is spun. ”

“ If sleeping, wake: if feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore— I answer not, and I return no more. ”

“ This may last for just a wink; or for ages we may roam;
Who wearies of the pause may hope and hope again.
The dead find ample time to wait beneath the loam,
The dead will wait the while we may despair in vain. ”

“ And, giving a great leap, his heart began to thrash with the excitement of a chase all but completed, with the foreknowledge that, in the next few minutes, destiny was making, life and death were being weighed, the balances of fate about to tip! ”

“ And on thine own, upturn'd—alas, in sorrow!
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—
Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses!
No footstep stirred: the hated world all slept,
Save only thee and me. ”

“ Why must fate be like that, so heavy, so ruthless and crushing? Why had it not all come earlier, including the thing which advanced with such a threatening roar and under which she, too weary now, too weak and too old, would succumb when it passed over her, when it reached her at last out of the roaring, threatening, distant, distant eternity, wherein all the things of the future are born. ”

“ The near approach of death--the plunge, as it were, into the jaws of the grave, from which she had been rescued as by a miracle--had seemed to waken in her new sensations towards all the warm relationships of life, a clinging to her kindred beings of the world, a tenderer, a nearer affection for the thrilling ties of human life. ”

“ If Fate so rules, that I should feel
The miseries of a widow's life,
Can man's device the doom repeal?
Unequal seems to be a strife,
Between Humanity and Fate;
None have on earth what they desire;
Death comes to all or soon or late ”

“ If a vision was granted to you, if you saw, beforehand, what would be in the future, and if now the vision is followed by what is, or appears to be, a reality, is that any reason why your strength and presence of mind should desert you?' A pause, and then, answering the thought of his heart, the voice went on, 'Fate! That is true. Everything is fate. But our resistances are predicted and foreseen as well as our trials. Arise and be of good cheer. ”

“ And Life replied:
“Sorrow, unceasing struggle, disappointment;
after these
Darkness and silence.” The Soul said unto Death:
“What dos thou offer me?” And Death replied:
“In the beginning what Life gives at last.”
Turning to Life: “And if I live and struggle?”
“Others shall live and struggle after thee
Counting it easier where thou hast passed.” ”

“ Till darkness and the law Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. Until the darkness of the grave and the universal law of change and dissolution shall draw the curtain of death over his sleep—shall prove his apparent sleep to be veritable death. ”

“ If I am to put an end to my life, I will do that. Death is at my will. What other alternative have I now but to die? But, whether I live or die, I have resolved not to return home. You have, for nothing, taken so much trouble—go back, I will not return. ”

“ Unto the dregs, pale sorrow’s bitter druaght,
Then will this troubled heart, so sorely tried,
From earthly eare and tormoil find release
And death will grant me all that life denied,
Best and oblivion and unbroken peace. ”

“ We know that all things change, they do not die.{101}
Wherever man may roam,
Thy presence, viewless as the Summer air,
Meets him abroad, or in his peaceful home,
And when Death calls him forth, thou, too, art there.
Thou art where soul meets soul,
Or where earth’s noblest fall in battle strife;
But Death, the Spoiler, yields to thy control;
Forevermore thou art the conqueror, Life.
Leaves have their glad recall,
And blossoms open to the South wind’s breath,
And stars that set shall rise again, for all,
All things shall triumph o’er the Spoiler—Death. ”

“ Thus go the fairy kind, Whither Fate driveth; not as we Who fight with it, and deem us free Therefore, and after pine, or strain Against our prison bars in vain; For to them Fate is Lord of Life And Death, and idle is a strife With such a master ... ”

“ This solemn moment fly;
And we are to the margin come,
And we expect to die.
Oh that we now may grasp our Guide!
Lord, when the word is given,
Bid death's cold flood its waves divide,
And land us all in heaven! ”

“ As the Angel of the last hour saw the battle-fields stretched before him, full of blood and tears, and drew the trembling souls away, his mild eyes melted, and he said: "Ah! I will once die like man, that I may enter into his last agony, and soothe it when I dissolve the ties of life!" ”

“ Millions of ages had rolled away since the struggle began—the battle of life on earth against the encroachments of death. And now death stalked everywhere, grinning with malicious triumph, for he had but one more battle to fight. ”

“ I will lead you through the valley of death to victory.' 'Death ends all' cries a despairing world, but the Spirit throughout the ages answers 'Nay, it ends nothing, for thou, O Nazarene, hast conquered death for evermore.'
"Wonders upon wonders will unfold themselves before us, this world cannot hold our spirits prisoners, and other worlds will become as accessible to us then as the suburbs of this town are at present." ”

“ Then I made up my mind to flee to the end of the world, where no one ever goes. But is there a place anywhere, to which no one has ever yet been? I took nothing belonging to the dying animals, not even the halters; I left everything. And when the leader fell I did not even take the figured band from his head, which had come down to me from my ancestors.'
'A-ah!' responded the listeners. ”

“ And further, it is evident that the Fall was foreseen, to be a means whereby man could be brought face to face with both good and evil; that of his own agency he might elect the one or the other, and thus be prepared by the experiences of a mortal probation for the exaltation provided in the glorious plan of his creation:—"For behold, this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man;" ”

“ If it is not an interlude, it will be the end of the world. But we have sworn to make an end of that ending: warring on until, if only by a purgatory of the nations and the mountainous annihilation of men, the story of the world ends well. ”

“ But O! when both shall end,
Where shall I find my destined place?
Shall I my everlasting days
With fiends, or angels spend?
Nothing is worth a thought beneath
But how I may escape the death
That never, never dies ”

“ It is well if, by tasting such sorrows as mine—and they are many—I am taught to avoid the far greater and more permanent evils of futurity. In this world, we are suspended over the abyss of eternity, by a thread which grows more feeble every hour; and all events should be welcome which are ordained by infinite wisdom, to prepare me for that hour when my place on earth shall be vacant, and my place in eternity—in a ceaseless eternity, shall be filled. ”

“ Exile for life from one's hearthstone and one's idols—this is rack, thumb-screw, the water-drop, fagot and stake, tearing asunder by horses, flaying alive—all these in one; and not compact into hours, but drawn out into years, each year a century, and the whole a mortal immortality of torture and despair. ”

“ Over hillock and grave!
[I’m] lifted with unstable shoulder of the gales
I fly, where kidnaps me will of fate,
Where sooner or later the destination of rose
To go, where even, laurel to disappear [is] the fate ... ”

“ Before a human form, Who never shrank from danger's path,
Or cowered beneath a storm, Fall down before that reaper's hand
As falls the sun scorched grain; And Glory's wreath, and Victory's song
Alike are void and vain. ”

“ Die, die, die, die, death comes to all." Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and above, destruction behind and before. Change is the only Eternal,—why not as welcome Death as Life? ”

“ Then downward fell, forever lost to sight.
And so it is, I thought, that poor hearts yearning
For more of life, charmed by its outward sheen,
Must backward fall, the truth too quickly learning,
That death, cold and unyielding, stands between. ”

“ How could the battle begin again when all was quiet along the firing line—quiet with the quiet of death? Do dead memories surge up into furies? Can dead hopes burn again? Is there any resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under the ban of wedlock? ”

“ The end comes as came the beginning, And shadows fail into the past; And the goal, is it not worth the winning, If it brings us but home at the last? While over the pain of waste places We tread, ‘tis a blossoming rod That drives us to grace from disgraces, From the plains to the Gardens of God. ”

“ The recoil, the pause, the terrible astonishment of that moment when Life, surging ahead with all his banners flying, flings himself in an instant against the immovable face of Death—leaves the soul dazed by the shock—dazed, and unbelieving. ”

“ What solemn stillness reigns around where death has been! The painful oppression, the muffled tread, the echoes that haunt as tidings from the spirit world, borne on invisible wings, confronting us at every step. ”

“ Holding no ray of promise for a morrow
Whose moments, as they come and go, must be—
For one who welcomes nor the night nor morn,
Whose weariness scarce knows itself forlorn—
But portions of a dull, unwished eternity. ”

“ Not peace did you gain, perhaps, nor the rest you had planned,
’Neath the horrible countless eyes that you could not withstand?
Or was it God looked from his throne in a moment’s disdain,
And you shrieked for a trial once more in the height of your pain?
p. 99Perhaps—but who knows—when you struggled so hard for life’s breath,
You saw nothing passing the grave except silence and death,
You lay shut in by the four clay walls of your cell,
There the live soul locked up in the stiff dead body’s shell. ”

“ Through man and beast, through grain and grass.
Howe'er we struggle, strive, and cry,
From death there can be no escape,
And no escape from life, alas
Because we cannot die, but pass
From one into another shape:
It is but into life we die. ”

“ All, all forgotten—and shall man repine That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke? Cease, fool! the fate of gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak, When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke? ”

“ You have surely achieved your fate; And the perfect dead are elate To have won once more. Now to the dead you are giving Your last allegiance. But what of us who are living And fearful yet of believing In your pitiless legions. ”

“ Then came the sense of a release—the gasping, choking, horrible consciousness, that you are struggling on the confines of two worlds, and not knowing which is to be yours—whether earth or death shall have you. ”

“ Prophetic of our life,
The chronicles where Fate inscribes
Our sorrow, sin, and strife;
All that we struggle with in vain,
All that we seek to shun,
The weird of that stern destiny,
Whose will must aye be done. ”

“ I have nearly run my span of life. Death may, in the natural order of things, claim me at any moment. Say it claims me to-morrow, and I die without a will, what will become of the great fortune I shall leave behind me? ”

“ What thousands thou hast usher'd in
To this sad world of guilt and sorrow;
But whatsoe'er thy faults have been,
Thy reign, old boy, is o'er to-morrow.
So, part we friends, for thou hast dried
The tear from many a weeping eye ”

“ I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
[Pg 40]
“My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite;
I laugh at what you call dissolution;
And I know the amplitude of time.”
What lies through the portal of death is hidden from us; but the laws that govern that unknown land are not all hidden from us, for they govern here and now; they are immutable, eternal. ”

“ Not the falling proclaims the defeat, but the place of the fall;
And the fate that decrees and the god that impels through it all
Regard not blind mortals' divisions of slayer and slain,
But invisible glories dispense wide over the war-gleaming plain.
He whom a Dream hath possessed. [Shaemas O Sheel]
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,
For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he scorns ”

“ I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun. ”

“ Those whom I knew and loved,—who, if they had triumphed, would have opened for me an easier, broader, higher-mounting road,—are everyday more and more involved in earthly ruin. Eternity is with us, but there is much darkness and bitterness in this portion of it. ”