my reach now often fails my grasp - confusion replaces regret, obligation taunts me from tomorrow - to do again what was done before.
how then might i notice and do - with ambition so withered? how might hope be gently held - to better keep promises?
difficult and grateful days go by - what more than these stories am i? pervasive fatigue now my companion.
i awake, underfull of thought, and overfull of sadness, i remember - a bird singing.
....And autumn grows, autumn in everything. Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape As if I saw alike my work and self And all that I was born to be and do, A twilight-piece... ...Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?.. ...i am grown peaceful as old age to-night. I regret little, I would change still less.. ..In this world, who can do a thing, will not; And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power-- And thus we half-men struggle..
excerpts from "Andrea del Sarto" by Robert Browning"
an ennui of age not unlike that of del Sarto is gripping me. though i too feel "a man's reach should exceed his grasp" and that having "grown peaceful as old age" also feels very "half-men" like.