The Answer
The Answer
The speaker laments the fleeting nature of worldly comforts and ambitions, then responds to those who judge his inconsistency by affirming that only those who know the full story truly understand.
My comforts drop and melt away like snow. I shake my head, and all the thoughts and aims my fierce youth tossed about fall and flow around me like leaves, or like summer friends—flies of wealth and sunshine.1 But to all who think me eager, hot, and full of enterprise, yet slack and small in following through—as a young vapor, just waking, that scorns its first bed of dirt and aims for the sky, but cools along the way, grows short of breath and slow, and settling into a cloud, lives and dies in that dark state of tears—to all who portray and cast me so, I have one reply: those who know the rest know more than I do.23
Read the original English
My comforts drop and melt away like snow: I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends Which my fierce youth did bandie, fall and flow Like leaves about me, or like summer friends, Flyes of estates and sunne-shine. But to all, Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking, But in my prosecutions slack and small; As a young exhalation, newly waking, Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the skie; But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow, And setling to a cloud, doth live and die In that dark state of tears: to all, that so Show me, and set me, I have one reply, Which they that know the rest, know more then I.
Notes
- 1 ↩Early modern 'bandie' (bandy) = toss about, thrash from side to side; rendered as 'tossed about' for the restless handling of youthful schemes. 'Flyes of estates and sunne-shine' is Herbert's figure for fair-weather companions who swarm around rank, property, and good fortune.
- 2 ↩'Exhalation' is a rising vapor/mist (meteorological figure), not a breath of speech. 'Pursie' (pursy) = short of breath, swollen, sluggish. 'Prosecutions' = pursuits/follow-through, not legal cases. 'Show me, and set me' = depict and place/characterize me. Early modern 'then' = than.
- 3 ↩Closing line is deliberately humble and elliptical: those who know 'the rest' (the fuller story, outcome, or divine accounting) know more than the speaker claims. Left slightly open rather than over-explained.
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