In the silence of his room. After many days.

All, all are shadows. All must pass

As writing in the sand or sea;

Reflections in a looking-glass

Are not less permanent than we.

The days that mould us — what are they?

That break us on their whirling wheel?

What but the potters! we the clay

They fashion and yet leave unreal.

Linked through the ages, one and all,

In long anthropomorphous chain,

The human and the animal

Inseparably must remain.

Within us still the monster shape

That shrieked in air and howled in slime,

What are we?— partly man and ape —

The tools of fate, the toys of time!