Elegy

I don't feel like posting the usual stuff today. I am still incensed over some cruel comments made online about the young man who died at the Oklahoma City Occupation site on Monday.






From
Elegy On The Death Of A Young Man by Friedrich Von Schiller.
In memory of a young man we met, but briefly, last week:

"....There, with rapture sorrow leaves the breast,–
Man’s afflictions there no longer harm.
Slander now may wildly rave o’er thee,
And temptation vomit poison fell,
O’er the wrangle on the Pharisee,
Murderous bigots banish thee to hell!
Rogues beneath apostle-masks may leer,
And the bastard child of justice play,
As it were with dice, with mankind here,
And so on, until the judgment day!

O’er thee fortune still may juggle on,
For her minions blindly look around,–
Man now totter on his staggering throne,
And in dreary puddles now be found!
Blest art thou, within thy narrow cell!
To this stir of tragi-comedy,
To these fortune-waves that madly swell,
To this vain and childish lottery,
To this busy crowd effecting naught,
To this rest with labor teeming o’er,
Brother!–to this heaven with devils–fraught,
Now thine eyes have closed forevermore."