Lxv

I liken to this play o' the body--fruitless strife To slip the sea and hold the heaven--my spirit's life 'Twixt false, whence it would break, and true, where it would bide. I move in, yet resist, am upborne every side By what I beat against, an element too gross To live in, did not soul duly obtain her dose Of life-breath, and inhale from truth's pure plenitude Above her, snatch and gain enough to just illude With hope that some brave bound may baffle evermore The obstructing medium, make who swam henceforward soar: --Gain scarcely snatched when, foiled by the very effort, souse, Underneath ducks the soul, her truthward yearnings dowse Deeper in falsehood! ay, but fitted less and less To bear in nose and mouth old briny bitterness Proved alien more and more: since each experience proves Air--the essential good, not sea, wherein who moves Must thence, in the act, escape, apart from will or wish. Move a mere hand to take water-weed, jelly-fish, Upward you tend! And yet our business with the sea Is not with air, but just o' the water, watery: We must endure the false, no particle of which Do we acquaint us with, but up we mount a pitch Above it, find our head reach truth, while hands explore The false below: so much while here we bathe,--no more!