Failure.

There are some souls     Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals     That adverse Fate controls.     While others win     With little labor through life's dust and din,     And lord-like enter in     Immortal gates;     And, of Success the high-born intimates,     Inherit Fame's estates. . .     Why is't the lot     Of merit oft to struggle and yet not     Attain? to toil for what?     Simply to know     The disappointment, the despair and woe     Of effort here below?     Ambitious still to reach     Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,     For which their souls beseech:     Those heights that swell     Remote, removed, and unattainable,     Pinnacle on pinnacle:     Still yearning to attain     Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,     But all in vain, in vain!. . .     Why hath God put     Great longings in some souls and straightway shut     All doors of their clay hut?     The clay accurst     That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,     The spirit may not burst.     Were it, at least,     Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,     If afterwards a beast?     Than aye to bleed,     To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,     And nevermore succeed?