There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking_x000D_ _x000D_ Spins the heavy world around.