Classic Poem

But whether in the uncoloured light of truth
This inward strong assurance be indeed
More than the self-willed arbitrary creed,
Manhood's inheritor to the dream of youth;
Whether to shut out fact because forsooth
To live were unsupportable, unfreed,
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Be not or be the service of untruth:
Whether this vital confidence be more
Than his, who upon death's immediate brink
Knowing, perforce determines to ignore,
Or than the bird's, that with the hunters near
Burying her eyesight can forget her fear—
Who about this shall tell us what to think?