Old happiness is grey as we And we may still outstrip her; If we be slippered pantaloons O let us hunt the slipper!
The old world glows with colours clear, And if, as saith the saint, The world is but a painted show, O let us lick the paint!
Far, far behind are morbid hours And lonely hearts that bleed; Far, far behind us are the days When we were old indeed.
Behold the simple sum of things Where, in one splendour spun, The stars go round the Mulberry Bush, The Burning Bush, the Sun.
A man (of a certain age) may look into the eyes of his lady-love to see that they are beautiful. But no normal lady will allow that young man to look into her eyes to see whether they are beautiful. The same variety and idiosyncrasy has been generally observed in gods. Praise them; or leave them alone; but do not look for them unless you know they are there. Do not look for them unless you want them.
Likelier across these flats afar, These sulky levels smooth and free, The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare Slaughter below and smoke above, And death and hate and hell declare That men have found a thing to love.
Everything is military in the sense that everything depends upon obedience. There is no perfectly epicurean corner; there is no perfectly irresponsible place. Everywhere men have made the way for us with sweat and submission. We may fling ourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness. But we are glad that the net-maker did not make the net in a fit of divine carelessness. We may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke. But we are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it unglued for a joke.
I will ride upon the Nightmare; but she shall not ride on me.
A great man of letters or any great artist is symbolic without knowing it. The things he describes are types because they are truths. Shakespeare may or may not have ever put it to himself that Richard the Second was a philosophical symbol; but all good criticism must necessarily see him so. It may be a reasonable question whether an artist should be allegorical. There can be no doubt among sane men that a critic should be allegorical.
When society is in rather a futile fuss about the subjection of women, will no one say how much every man owes to the tyranny and privilege of women, to the fact that they alone rule education until education becomes futile? For a boy is only sent to be taught at school when it is too late to teach him anything. The real thing has been done already, and thank God it is nearly always done by women. Every man is womanized, merely by being born. They talk of the masculine woman; but every man is a feminized man. And if ever men walk to Westminster to protest against this female privilege, I shall not join their procession.