Canto CVI
I will not shut me from my kind,And, lest I stiffen into stone,I will not eat my heart alone,Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:
What profit lies in barren faith,And vacant yearning, tho’ with mightTo scale the heaven’s highest height,Or dive below the wells of Death?
What find I in the highest place,But mine own phantom chanting hymns?And on the depths of death there swimsThe reflex of a human face.
I’ll rather take what fruit may beOf sorrow under human skies:’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.