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Unto What End, I Ask

Topics: classic

Unto what end, I ask, unto what end     Is all this effort, this unrest and toil?     Work that avails not? strife and mad turmoil?     Ambitions vain that rack our hearts and rend?     Did labor but avail! did it defend     The soul from its despair, who would recoil     From sweet endeavor then? work that were oil     To still the storms that in the heart contend!     But still to see all effort valueless!     To toil in vain year after weary year     At Song! beholding every other Art     Considered more than Song's high holiness,     The difficult, the beautiful and dear!     Doth break my heart, ah God! doth break my heart!

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"Unto what end, I ask, unto what end..."

Madison Julius Cawein's contribution to classic is further solidified by the brilliance found in "Unto What End, I Ask"... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

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