Canto XXXIV

My own dim life should teach me this,

      That life shall live for evermore,

      Else earth is darkness at the core,

And dust and ashes all that is;

This round of green, this orb of flame,

      Fantastic beauty; such as lurks

      In some wild Poet, when he works

Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?

      'Twere hardly worth my while to choose

      Of things all mortal, or to use

A little patience ere I die;

'Twere best at once to sink to peace,

      Like birds the charming serpent draws,

      To drop head-foremost in the jaws

Of vacant darkness and to cease.