To drink, to acquire respect and praise :—
These visions perish as you gaze.
Eternal mockery is the real;
Eternal falsehood, the ideal.
Choose: nay, abstain from choice of these.
Go, be alone, and be at ease!
Retire: renounce: the hermit’s cell
Hath all of earth, and naught of hell.
Renouncing all, keep naught enshrined
A lurking serpent in the mind,
Deem not to catch some goodlier gain
Than these; the goodliest prize were pain.
Know that the utmost heaven is void
Of aught save star or asteroid!
Or, an it please thee, idly dream
A God therein, a force supreme,
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