A Song from the Coptic

QUARRELS have long been in vogue among sages;

Still, though in many things wranglers and rancorous,
All the philosopher-scribes of all ages

Join, una voce, on one point to anchor us.
Here is the gist of their mystified pages,

Here is the wisdom we purchase with gold —
Children of Light, leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures, and fools to their foolishness;

Berries were bitter in forests of old.

Hoary old Merlin, that great necromancer,
Made me, a student, a similar answer,

When I besought him for light and for lore:
Toiler in vain! leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures, and fools to their foolishness;

Granite was hard in the quarries of yore.

And on the ice-crested heights of Armenia,
And in the vallies of broad Abyssinia,

Still spake the Oracle just as before:
Wouldst thou have peace, leave the world to its mulishness,
Things to their natures, and fools to their foolishness;

Beetles were hlind in the ages of yore.