Explore "The Will to Live" by Edith Nesbit on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
SINCE Faith is a veil that has nothing behind it, / And Hope wanders lost where no mortal can find it, / Since Love is a mirror we break in a minute / In snatching the image our soul has cast in it, / What is the use of the Summers and Springs, / The wave of the woods and the waft of the wings -- / Since all means nothing, and good things and ill / Make madness, -- a mirage tormenting us still?
Since all the fighting, the ardent endeavour, / The heart cast bleeding to feed the Ideal, / Are vain, vain, vain, and the one thing real / Is that all's vain, for ever and ever; / Why then, be a man and stand back from the strife, / Fall by the sword, but keep out of the snare; / Will but to be -- and be willing to bear / All that the gods may lay on your of life!