Artemis to Actaeon Author:Edith Wharton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EXPERIENCE T IKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand —' Upon the desert verge of death, and say: " What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy t... more »o-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand ? In life's small market they had served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand." But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, f £ When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, ( Dies with us—hoarded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould ( Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again. O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love's oblivion, and remembering hate, Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls—and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death ? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait. Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, e, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, L- But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep— A, Death, can it be the years shall naught avail ? .. . " Not so," Death answered, " they shall purchase sleep." (. GRIEF immemorial altitudes august Grief holds her high dominion. Bold the feet That climb unblenching to that stern retreat Whence, looking down, man knows himself but dust. There lie the mightiest passions, earthward thrust Beneath her regnant footstool, and there meet Pale ghosts of buried longings that were sweet, With many an abdicated "shall" and "must." For there she rules omnipotent, whose will £, Compels a mute acceptance of her chart; Jf Who holds the ...« less