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Title: Existence, Considered In Itself, No Blessing
Author: Charles Lamb [
More Titles by Lamb]
From the Latin of Palingenius
(1832)
The Poet, after a seeming approval of suicide, from a consideration of the cares and crimes of life, finally rejecting it, discusses the negative importance of existence, contemplated in itself, without reference to good or evil.
Of these sad truths consideration had--
Thou shalt not fear to quit this world so mad,
So wicked; but the tenet rather hold
Of wise Calanus, and his followers old,
Who with their own wills their own freedom wrought,
And by self-slaughter their dismissal sought
From this dark den of crime--this horrid lair
Of men, that savager than monsters are;
And scorning longer, in this tangled mesh
Of ills, to wait on perishable flesh,
Did with their desperate hands anticipate
The too, too slow relief of lingering fate.
And if religion did not stay thine hand,
And God, and Plato's wise behests, withstand,
I would in like case counsel thee to throw
This senseless burden off, of cares below.
Not wine, _as_ wine, men choose, but as it came
From such or such a vintage: 'tis the same
With life, which simply must be understood
A black negation, if it be not good.
But if 'tis wretched all--as men decline
And loath the sour lees of corrupted wine--
'Tis so to be contemn'd. Merely TO BE
Is not a boon to seek, nor ill to flee,
Seeing that every vilest little Thing
Has it in common, from a gnat's small wing,
A creeping worm, down to the moveless stone,
And crumbling bark from trees. Unless TO BE,
And TO BE BLEST, be one, I do not see
In bare existence, _as_ existence, aught
That's worthy to be loved, or to be sought.
[The end]
Charles Lamb's poem: Existence, Considered In Itself, No Blessing
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