aught, and being aught Being to be? 

 

XXXIV.

 Happy the maimed, the halt, the mad, the blind— All who, stamped separate by curtailing birth, Owe no duty’s allegiance to mankind Nor stand a valuing in their scheme of worth! But I, whom Fate, not Nature, did curtail, By no exterior voidness being exempt, Must bear accusing glances where I fail, Fixed in the general orbit of contempt. Fate, less than Nature in being kind to lacking, Giving the ill, shows not as outer cause, Making our mock-free will the mirror’s backing Which Fate’s own acts as if in itself shows; And men, like children, seeing the image there, Take place for cause and make our will Fate bear. 

 

XXXV.

 Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad. The outer day, void statue of lit blue, Is altogether outward, other, glad At mere being not-I (so my aches construe). I, that have failed in everything, bewail Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed, For in the general fate what is’t to fail? Why, fate being past for Fate, ’tis but to have failed. Whatever hap-or stop, what matters it, Sith to the mattering our will bringeth nought? With the higher trifling let us world our wit, Conscious that, if we do’t, that was the lot The regular stars bound us to, when they stood Godfathers to our birth and to our blood. 

 

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