To wear out heart, and nerves, and brain, And give oneself a world of pain; Be eager, angry, fierce, and hot, Imperious, supple -- God knows what, For what's all one to have or not; O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! For 'tis not joy, it is not gain, It is not in itself a bliss, Only it is precisely this That keeps us all alive. To say we truly feel the pain, And quite are sinking with the strain; -- Entirely, simply, undeceived, Believe, and say we ne'er believed The object, e'en were it achieved, A thing we e'en had cared to keep; With heart and soul to hold it cheap, And then to go and try it again; O false, unwise, absurd, and vain! O, 'tis not joy, and 'tis not bliss, Only it is precisely this That keeps us still alive. |