Iv

But whether in the uncoloured light of truth, This inward strong assurance be, indeed, More than the self-willed arbitrary creed, Manhood’s inheritor to the dream of youth; Whether to shut out fact because forsooth To live were insupportable unfreed, Be not or be the service of untruth: Whether this vital confidence be more Than his, who upon death’s immediate brink, Knowing, perforce determines to ignore; Or than the bird’s, that when the hunter’s near, Burying her eyesight, can forget her fear; Who about this shall tell us what to think?