Hyperion to Bellarmin
Can you bear to hear it, will you be able to grasp it when I tell you of my long sick sorrow?
Take me as I give myself and consider that it’s better to die because one lived than to live because one never lived! Don’t envy the griefless, the idols of wood who lack nothing because they’re so poor in soul, who care nothing whether it’s rain or shine because they’ve nothing that needs nurturing.
Yes! yes! it’s oh so easy to be happy and at peace when you've a shallow heart and a narrow spirit. You’re welcome to it; for who is bothered that the wooden target doesn’t moan when the arrow strikes it, and that the empty pot makes so hollow a sound when flung against the wall?
Only you ought to learn your limits, dear people, ought to wonder in all silence if you cannot grasp that others aren’t so happy, so self- contented, ought to be wary of making your wisdom law, for if you were obeyed that would be the end of the world.
I was living now a very still and simple life on Tinos. And I really did let the world’s appearances pass by like autumn mists, sometimes laughing moist-eyed at my heart when it flew out for a morsel, like a bird to painted grapes, and I stayed still and friendly all the while.
I now happily left every man his opinions, his foibles. I was converted, Ino longer wanted to convert others, only it saddened me to see that people thought I left their farce unchallenged because I set such great store by it as they. It’s not so much that I wished to submit to their silliness, but I tried to spare their feelings where I could. ‘It gives them joy after all,’ I’d think, ‘it’s what keeps them going!’
Often I even suffered myself to join in, and no matter how spiritless and impassive my presence, nobody noticed, nothing whatever was found wanting, and had I begged forgiveness for my demeanour, they’d have stood there in wonder and asked: ‘What have you done to offend us then?’ How very tolerant!
Often when I stood by my window of a morning and the bustling day approached me, I too could forget myself a moment, could look about me as if eager to engage in some activity in which my being still found its pleasure as before, but then I would chide myself, then I’d bethink myself, like a man who lets slip sounds from his mother tongue in a land where no one understands it — ‘whither, my heart?’ I’d sensibly tell myself and obey.
‘What does it mean that man desires so much?’ I often asked, ‘why this infinity in his breast? infinity? where is it then? who has perceived it then? He wants more than he can have! that’s surely true! Oh! that’s something you’ ve experienced often enough. And that’s the way it must be too. That’s what imparts the sweet intoxicating sense of energy that it doesn’t flow forth as it will, that’s what makes the beautiful dreams of immortality and all the lovely and colossal phantoms that enrapture man a thousandfold, that’s what creates for man his Elysium and his gods that his life’s line doesn’t run straight, that his path isn’t true as an arrow’s and an alien force impedes him in his flight.
‘The heart’s wave wouldn’t foam up so beautifully, becoming spirit, if fate, that ancient silent rock, didn’t stand in its way.
‘But yet the impulse dies within our breast, and with it our gods and their heaven.
‘The fire leaps up in joyous shapes from out of the dark cradle where it slept, and its flame rises and falls and breaks apart and wraps around itself again in joy, until its fuel is spent, then it smokes and writhes and expires; what’s left behind is ash.
‘So it is with us. That’s the essence of everything the sages tell us in mysteries both awful and alluring.
‘And you? why ask yourself? That there are times when something rears up within you, and your heart, like the mouth of the dying man, in a single moment opens and closes so violently, that’s the truly fatal sign.
‘Just be still and let things take their course! no more futile industry! don’t childishly try to add a cubit to your stature! — It’s like wanting to create another sun, and spawn for it new satellites, an earth and a moon.’
So I dreamed on. Patiently, little by little I took my leave of everything. — O you who share with me this age! don’t turn to your doctors, don’t turn to the priests, when you find yourselves inwardly dwindling!
You've lost faith in all that is great; so you’re bound, you’re bound to waste away, unless this faith return like a comet from alien heavens.