I live a twilight life—not dark, bat yet
⁠Enjoying bat a dim uncertain light;
Not glad nor sad, no victim of regret,
⁠But ever not so near to day as night:
Pleasure's intoxication now no more
⁠Can fill me with its rapture—for I know
Earthward we fall at last though high we soar.
⁠And time shall soon all gladness overthrow:
Yet now I feel not sorrow's bitterness
⁠Crashing me down as once with leaden weight.
For that same fete that makes our pleasures less.
⁠The pressure too of misery doth abate:
So now I rest content, whate'er befall,
To live or die—"the readiness is all."

To form vast projects which a dozen lives
⁠To carry out would be by fer too short,
Though each were as a Cromwell's or a Clive's,
⁠And fate disposed to favour, not to thwart:
To long for action yet feel impotent
⁠To act were action offered to my hand;
To mourn for ever over time misspent,
⁠While runneth out my life's fast-falling sand:
Could fete a sadder destiny devise
⁠When most disposed to humble human pride?
And yet no longer now it mortifies,
⁠And I in patient fortitude abide:
For yet I am myself and would not be
Another even for an empire's fee.