Weak is the will of man (1815)

“Weak is the will of Man, his judgments blind;

Remembrance persecutes, and Hope betrays;

Heavy is woe;--and joy, for human-kind,

A mournful thing, so transit it the blaze!”

Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days

Who wants the glorious faculty assigned

To elevate the more-than-reasoning Mind,

And colour life’s dark cloud with orient rays.

Imagination lofty and refined:

’Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower

Of Faith, and round Suffer’s temple bind

Wreaths that endure affliction’s heaviest shower,

And do not shrink from sorrow’s keenest wind.

 

William Wordsworth, Selected Poems and Prefaces, ed. Jack Stillinger (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965),428.