THE ARGUMENT
I have clung
To nothing, lov’d a nothing, nothing seen
Or felt but a great dream! O I have been
Presumptuous against love, against the sky,
Against all elements, against the tie
Of mortals each to each....
... Against his proper glory
Has my soul conspired; so my story
Will I to children utter, and repent.
There never lived a mortal man, who bent
His appetite beyond his natural sphere
But starv’d and died....
Here will I kneel, for thou redeemest hast
My life from too thin breathing: gone and past
Are cloudy phantasms!
—Keats.