Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less—­
You disbelieve!  Who wonders and who cares? 
Lord So-and-so—­his coat bedropped with wax,
All Peter’s chains about his waist, his back
Brave with the needlework of Noodledom—­
Believes!  Again, who wonders and who cares? 
But I, the man of sense and learning too,
The able to think yet act, the this, the that,
I, to believe at this late time of day! 430
Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.

—­Except it’s yours!  Admire me as these may,
You don’t.  But whom at least do you admire? 
Present your own perfection, your ideal,
Your pattern man for a minute—­oh, make haste,
Is it Napoleon you would have us grow? 
Concede the means; allow his head and hand,
(A large concession, clever as you are)
Good!  In our common primal element
Of unbelief (we can’t believe, you know—­ 440
We’re still at that admission, recollect!)
Where do you find—­apart from, towering o’er
The secondary temporary aims
Which satisfy the gross taste you despise—­
Where do you find his star?—­his crazy trust
God knows through what or in what? it’s alive
And shines and leads him, and that’s all we want. 
Have we aught in our sober night shall point
Such ends as his were, and direct the means
Of working out our purpose straight as his, 450
Nor bring a moment’s trouble on success
With after-care to justify the same? 
—­Be a Napoleon, and yet disbelieve—­
Why, the man’s mad, friend, take his light away! 
What’s the vague good o’ the world, for which you dare
With comfort to yourself blow millions up? 
We neither of us see it! we do see
The blown-up millions—­spatter of their brains
And writhing of their bowels and so forth,
In that bewildering entanglement 460
Of horrible eventualities
Past calculation to the end of time! 
Can I mistake for some clear word of God
(Which were my ample warrant for it all)
His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk,
“The State, that’s I,” quack-nonsense about crowns,
And (when one beats the man to his last hold)
A vague idea of setting things to rights,
Policing people efficaciously,
More to their profit, most of all to his own; 470
The whole to end that dismallest of ends
By an Austrian marriage, cant to us the Church,
And resurrection of the old regime? 
Would I, who hope to live a dozen years,
Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such? 
No:  for, concede me but the merest chance
Doubt may be wrong—­there’s judgment, life to come
With just that chance, I dare not.  Doubt proves right? 
This present life is all?—­you offer me
Its dozen noisy years, without a chance 480
That wedding an archduchess, wearing lace,
And getting called by divers new-coined names,
Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine,
Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like! 
Therefore I will not.