All is Well

Whate’er you dream with doubt possest,
Keep, keep it snug within your breast,
And lay you down and take your rest;
Forget in sleep the doubt and pain,
And when you wake, to work again.
The wind it blows, the vessel goes,
And where and whither, no one knows.

’Twill all be well: no need of care;
Though how it will, and when, and where,
We cannot see, and can’t declare.
In spite of dreams, in spite of thought,
’Tis not in vain, and not for nought,
The wind it blows, the ship it goes,
Though where and whither, no one knows.

πάντα ῥεῖ· οὐδὲν μένει.

Upon the water, in the boat,
I sit and sketch as down I float:
The stream is wide, the view is fair,
I sketch it looking backward there.

The stream is strong, and as I sit
And view the picture that we quit,
It flows and flows, and bears the boat,
And I sit sketching as we float.

Each pointed height, each wavy line,
To new and other forms combine;
Proportions vary, colours fade,
And all the landscape is remade.

Depicted neither far nor near,
And larger there and smaller here,
And varying down from old to new,
E’en I can hardly think it true.

Yet still I look, and still I sit,
Adjusting, shaping, altering it;
And still the current bears the boat
And me, still sketching as I float.

Still as I sit, with something new
The foreground intercepts my view;
Even the distant mountain range
From the first moment suffers change.