The name of the Slough was Despond.
The nympholepsy of some fond despair.
Darkness our guide, Despair our leader was.
Night was our friend, our leader was Despair.
Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teuero.
Never despair while under the guidance and auspices of Teucer.
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.
Thus repuls'd, our final hope
Is flat despair.
Desperatio magnum ad honeste moriendum
incitamentum.
Despair is a great incentive to honorable death.
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly.
But, bear-like, I must fight the course.
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
Discomfort guides my tongue
And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
Oh, break, my heart! poor bankrupt, break at once!
To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!
Thou tyrant!
Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
Than all thy woes can stir: therefore, betake thee
To nothing but despair.
No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
* * * then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
DESTINY
(See also Fate)
My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
Che l'uomo il suo destin fugge di raro.
For rarely man escapes his destiny.
Life treads on life, and heart on heart;
We press too close in church and mart
To keep a dream or grave apart.
There are certain events which to each man's
life are as comets to the earth, seemingly strange
and erratic portents; distinct from the ordinary
lights which guide our course and mark our
seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in
their own influences.
For I am a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail,
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's
breath prevail.
Art and power will go on as they have done,—
will make day out of night, time out of space,
and space out of time.
Character is fate. (Destiny).
No living man can send me to the shades
Before my time; no man of woman born,
Coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
All, soon or late, are doom'd that path to tread.
The future works out great men's destinies:
The present is enough for common souls,
Who, never looking forward, are indeed
Mere clay wherein the footprints of their age
Are petrified forever.
We are but as the instrument of Heaven.
Our work is not design, but destiny.
