[Lyric] Seven Sonnets VI (Arthur Hugh Clough)

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 insupportable unfreed,
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 when the hunter comes
Burying her eyesight, can forget her fear;
Who about this shall tell us what to think?