All This He Saw, For One Moment

There Is Nothing -- Absolutely Nothing -- Half So Much Worth Doing As Simply Messing About In Boats. In Or Out Of 'em, It Doesn't Matter. Nothing Seems Really To Matter, That's The Charm Of It. Whether You Get Away, Or Whether You Don't; Whether You Arrive At Your Destination Or Whether You Reach Somewhere Else, Or Whether You Never Get Anywhere At All, You're Always Busy, And You Never Do Anything In Particular; And When You've Done It There's Always Something Else To Do, And You Can Do It If You Like, But You'd Much Better Not.

It Seemed A Place Where Heroes Could Fitly Feast After Victory, Where Weary Harvesters Could Line Up In Scores Along The Table And Keep Their Harvest Home With Mirth And Song, Or Where Two Or Three Friends Of Simple Tastes Could Sit About As They Pleased And Eat And Smoke And Talk In Comfort And Contentment.

But Mole Stood Still A Moment, Held In Thought. As One Wakened Suddenly From A Beautiful Dream, Who Struggles To Recall It, But Can Recapture Nothing But A Dim Sense Of The Beauty In It, The Beauty! Till That, Too, Fades Away In Its Turn, And The Dreamer Bitterly Accepts The Hard, Cold Waking And All Its Penalties.

Don't, For Goodness' Sake, Keep On Saying 'don't'; I Hear So Much Of It, And It's Monotonous, And Makes Me Tired.

For My Life, I Confess To You, Feels To Me Today Somewhat Narrow And Circumscribed.