Excerpt from Orpheus in Thrace, and Other Poems Orpheus in Thrace. All breathing men have trouble of their day. Fate and the gods abhor prosperity For us who live the wasting of an hour. Yet I, that Orpheus, whose sole craft is song, The mortal son of the immortal muse, Claim to have vanquished all competitors; In endless desolation held supreme, I bear the palm of sorrow's thorny road. Man's common grief to my imperial pain Seems like a puny gnat that pricks the skin, Beside a python crushing in his coils The very bones to pulp, a broken heap; Seems as a ripple to a cataract, Seems as a dew-bead to a planet sphere. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.