THE MORTAL LEASE

By Edith Wharton

BECAUSE the currents of our love are poured

Through the slow welter of the primal flood

From some blind source of monster-haunted mud,

And flung together by random forces stored

Ere the vast void with rushing worlds was scored —

Because we know ourselves but the dim scud

Tossed from their heedless keels, the sea-blown bud

That wastes and scatters ere the wave has roared —

Because we have this knowledge in our veins,

Shall we deny the journey's gathered lore —

The great refusals and the long disdains,

The stubborn questing for a phantom shore,

The sleepless hopes and memorable pains,

And all mortality's immortal gains?