. . .Immortality of the Soul[11] in strains that warrant our citing a few quatrains:—

“At first, her mother Earth she holdeth dear, And doth embrace the world and worldly things: She flies close by the ground, and hovers here, And mounts not up with her celestial wings. “Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught That with her heavenly nature doth agree; She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought, She cannot in this world contented be:[50] “For who, did ever yet, in honor, wealth, Or pleasure of the sense, contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish, when he had health? Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind? “Then, as a bee which among weeds doth fall, Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay; She lights on that and this, and tasteth all, But, pleased with none, doth rise and soar away!”

This is a long aside; but it gives us good breath to go back to our translators, who if not known to . . . Read More