Till then
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.

You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins
To sexless souls, ideal choirs,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains;
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend's remembered tones.

Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away;
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But oh, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.

The preacher has been talking to his congregation about the joys of
Heaven. There, he says, there will be no quarrelling, no contest, no
falsehood, and all evil dispositions will be entirely changed to good. The
poet answers, "This world and this life are full of beauty and of joy for
me. I do not want to die, I want to live. I do not wish to go to that cold
region of stars about which you teach. I only know this world and I find
in it warm hearts and precious affection. You say that this world is a
phantom, unsubstantial, unreal, and that the only reality is above, in
Heaven. To me that Heaven appears but as an awful emptiness. I shrink from
it in terror, and like a child seek for consolation in human love. It is
no use to talk to me about angels until you can prove to me that angels
can feel happier than men. I prefer to remain with human beings. You say
that I ought to wish for higher things than this world can give, that here
minds are unsteady and weak, hearts fickle and selfish, and you talk of
souls without sex, imaginary concerts of perfect music, tireless singing
in Heaven, and the pleasure of conversation without speech. But all the
happiness that we know is received from our fellow beings. I remember the
voice of one dead friend with deeper love and pleasure than any images of
Heaven could ever excite in my mind."

The last stanza needs no paraphrasing, but it deserves some comment, for
it is the expression of one great difference between the old Greek feeling
in regard to life and death, and all modern religious feeling on the same
subject. You can read through hundreds of beautiful inscriptions which
were placed over the Greek tombs. They are contained in the Greek
Anthology. You will find there almost nothing about hope of a future life,
or about Heaven. They are not for the most part sad; they are actually
joyous in many cases. You would say that the Greek mind thought thus about
death--"I have had my share of the