Degrees we know, unknown in days before;
The light is greater, hence the shadow more; And tantalized and apprehensive Man Appealing—­Wherefore ripen us to pain? 
Seems there the spokesman of dumb Nature’s
    train.

  But through such strange illusions have they
    passed
Who in life’s pilgrimage have baffled striven—­ Even death may prove unreal at the last, And stoics be astounded into heaven.

  Then keep thy heart, though yet but
    ill-resigned—­
Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind; That like the crocus budding through the
    snow—­
That like a swimmer rising from the deep—­ That like a burning secret which doth go Even from the bosom that would hoard and
    keep;
Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming
    sea,
And prove that death but routs life into victory.