What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth deg.?—­ deg.59
Most men eddy about 60
Here and there—­eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurl’d in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving 65
Nothing; and then they die—­
Perish;—­and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild 70
Of the midmost Ocean, have swell’d,
Foam’d for a moment, and gone.

And there are some, whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent, 75
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain. 
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die 80
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave! 
We, we have chosen our path—­
Path to a clear-purposed goal, 85
Path of advance!—­but it leads
A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o’er mountains in snow. 
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth—­
Then, on the height, comes the storm. 90
Thunder crashes from rock
To rock, the cataracts reply,
Lightnings dazzle our eyes. deg. deg.93
Roaring torrents have breach’d
The track, the stream-bed descends 95
In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep—­the spray
Boils o’er its borders! aloft
The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin deg.; alas, deg.100
Havoc is made in our train!

Friends, who set forth at our side,
Falter, are lost in the storm. 
We, we only are left! 
With frowning foreheads, with lips 105
Sternly compress’d, we strain on,
On—­and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn ’mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host 110
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs—­
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks: 
Whom in our party we bring? 115
Whom we have left in the snow?

Sadly we answer:  We bring
Only ourselves! we lost
Sight of the rest in the storm. 
Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120
Stripp’d, without friends, as we are. 
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side. deg. deg.123