Stop And Consider! Life Is But A

I Must Choose Between Despair And Energy──i Choose The Latter.

No One Can Usurp The Heights... But Those To Whom The Miseries Of The World Are Misery, And Will Not Let Them Rest.

Thou Wast Not Born For Death, Immortal Bird! No Hungry Generations Tread Thee Down; The Voice I Hear This Passing Night Was Heard In Ancient Days By Emperor And Clown: Perhaps The Self-same Song That Found A Path Through The Sad Heart Of Ruth, When, Sick For Home, She Stood In Tears Amid The Alien Corn; The Same That Ofttimes Hath Charm'd Magic Casements, Opening On The Foam Of Perilous Seas, In Faery Lands Forlorn.

To Feel Forever Its Soft Fall And Swell, Awake For Ever In A Sweet Unrest, Still, Still To Hear Her Tender-taken Breath, And So Live Ever-or Else Swoon In Death.

Much Have I Traveled In The Realms Of Gold, And Many Goodly States And Kingdoms Seen; Round Many Western Islands Have I Been Which Bards In Fealty To Apollo Hold. Oft Of One Wide Expanse Had I Been Told That Deep-brow'd Homer Ruled As His Demesne, Yet Did I Never Breathe Its Pure Serene Till I Heard Chapman Speak Out Loud And Bold: Then Felt I Like Some Watcher Of The Skies When A New Planet Swims Into His Ken; Or Like Stout Cortez When With Eagle Eyes He Stared At The Pacific, And All His Men Look'd At Each Other With A Wild Surmise, Silent, Upon A Peak In Darien.