PART SEVEN - YOKED
Reading edition
"We are as time moulds us, lacking wherewithal To shape out nobler fortunes or contend Against all-patient Fates, who may not mend The allotted pattern of things temporal Or alter it a jot or e'er let fall A single stitch thereof, until at last The web and its drear weavers be overcast And predetermined darkness swallow all.
"They have ordained for us a time to sing, A time to love, a time wherein to tire Of all spent songs and kisses; caroling Such elegies as buried dreams require, Love now departs, and leaves us shivering Beside the embers of a burned-out fire."
PAUL VANDERHOFFEN. Egeria Answers.