Canto CVI

I will not shut me from my kind,

      And, lest I stiffen into stone,

      I will not eat my heart alone,

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:

What profit lies in barren faith,

      And vacant yearning, tho' with might

      To scale the heaven's highest height,

Or dive below the wells of Death?

What find I in the highest place,

      But mine own phantom chanting hymns?

      And on the depths of death there swims

The reflex of a human face.

I'll rather take what fruit may be

      Of sorrow under human skies:

      'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,

Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.