Seriously insisting that my toy also be gilded and
appraised. By chance it, too, may be a god and ride upon the clouds. Or be whirled like a leaf for a little while.
The stars have mocked me, but I have laughed back at
them. What, because your lives are longer.
Your beards are flame and your graves the exultant ether. Shall you mock me? Is not an end the end? Is not a life, life? Why do not you cover your scintillating brows and
petulantly cast yourselves down into the infinite abyss. Because you, too, will come at last into the vault of
darkness? Do you not, nevertheless, drive the fiery wheels of your
wagons their appointed race ? And the butterfly, which has been so carefully painted, Daintily decorated with infinite solicitude, Does it refuse to blossom upon the air Because its destiny is but an hour? If its hour be sunny and it luxuriate in the heart of a
holly-hock, Or if its hour be rainy and it lies broken in the roots of the
grass. Nevertheless it has lived, and in the daintily-woven
chrysalis of its caterpillar Will carefully hand on to the coming Summer The glad embroidery of its wings.
Shall I despairingly cast myself face downward,
Among the falling leaves, and cry out :
"It is vain; it is vain?"
Shall I betray life because, like the leaves,
I shall, with alloted brevity, return to my duty?
Are not they beautiful in death ?
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