"I am a puny part of the great whole. Yes; but all animals condemned to live, All sentient things, born by the same stern law, Suffer like me, and like me also die. The vulture fastens on his timid prey, And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs: All's well, it seems, for it. But in a while An eagle tears the vulture into shreds; The eagle is transfixed by shaft of man; The man, prone in the dust of battlefield, Mingling his blood with dying fellow-men, Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds. Thus the whole world in every member groans: All born for torment and for mutual death. And o'er this ghastly chaos you would say The ills of each make up the good of all! What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice, Mortal and pitiful, ye cry, "All's well," The universe belies you, and your heart Refutes a hundred times your mind's conceit."