Round the fountain.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Round the fountain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Your ready hand would yield, I dare be sworn, The boon unasked ; but I must writhe and pant. And see my candle slowly guttered out. For that I am a man ! 'Twere better then To want this god-like empery of speech. And turn to brute again. Heard I aright ? “ A greater risk ! ” There is no danger, friend. When what we risk lacks, manifold, the price Of seaside pebbles idly tossed away. Talk not of risk. Is not my life mine own ? Say it be God’s, at least 'twere given me ; And shall a man continue on his hand The ring that eats his altered finger through. Because 'twas given him ? O fearful soul. Think which were better, that I go to God Lapped up in happy memories and peace. Or, like a felon damned, agape to curse This monstrous interval 'twixt doom and death. Tertius. June, 1903.