Stake your counter as boldly every whit,
Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do your best, whether winning or losing it,
If you choose to play!--is my principle.
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will!
The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is--the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
You of the virtue (we issue join)
How strive you? _De te, fabula_!
The two volumes of _Dramatic Idyls_ are full of paradoxes, for
Browning became fonder and fonder of the paradox as he descended
into the vale of years. The Russian poem _Ivan Ivanovitch_ justly
condemns mothers who prefer their own safety to that of their
children. When a stranger gives up his life for another, as happens
frequently in crises of fire and shipwreck, we applaud: but when a
mother sacrifices her life for that of her child, she does the
natural and expected thing.
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