Chapter IV

But from behind the veil,
Where they are entered who have gone before,
A solemn voice arrests my feeble wail--
“And has thy life such worthier aims, O man,
That thou shouldst grudge to give its little span
To truth and knowledge, and faith’s holy lore,
Because the places for the exercise
Of these may be withdrawn from mortal eyes.
Win truth, win goodness--for which man was made,
And fear not thou of these to be bereft,
Fear not that these shall in the dust be laid,
Or in corruption left,
Or be the grave-worm’s food.
Nothing is left or lost--nothing of good,
Or lovely; but whatever its first springs
Has drawn from God, returns to him again;
That only which ’twere misery to retain
Is taken from you, which to keep were loss;
Only the scum the refuse and the dross
Are borne away unto the grave of things,
Meanwhile whatever gifts from heav’n descend
Thither again have flowed,
To the receptacle of all things good,
From whom they come and unto whom they tend,
Who is the First and Last, the Author and the End.