Epilogue
VIRTUE may unlock hell, or evenA sin turn in the wards of Heaven,(As ethics of the text-book go),So little men their own deeds know,Or through the intricate mêléeGuess whitherward draws the battle-sway;So little, if they know the deed,Discern what therefrom shall succeed.To wisest moralists ’tis but givenTo work rough border-law of Heaven,Within this narrow life of ours,These marches ’twixt delimitless Powers.Is it, if Heaven the future showed,Is it the all-severest modeTo see ourselves with the eyes of God?God rather grant, at His assize,He see us not with our own eyes!
Heaven, which man’s generations drawsNor deviates into replicas,Must of as deep diversityIn judgment as creation be.There is no expeditious roadTo pack and label men for God,And save them by the barrel-load.Some may perchance, with strange surprise,Have blundered into Paradise.In vasty dusk of life abroad,They fondly thought to err from God,Nor knew the circle that they trod;And wandering all the night about,Found them at morn where they set out.Death dawned; Heaven lay in prospect wide:—Lo! they were standing by His side!
The rhymer a life uncomplex,With just such cares as mortals vex,So simply felt as all men feel,Lived purely out to his soul’s weal.A double life the Poet lived,And with a double burthen grieved;The life of flesh and life of song,The pangs to both lives that belong;Immortal knew and mortal pain,Who in two worlds could lose and gain.And found immortal fruits must beMortal through his mortality.The life of flesh and life of song!If one life worked the other wrong,What expiating agonyMay for him damned to poesyShut in that little sentence be—What deep austerities of strife—“He lived his life.” He lived his life!