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...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is
escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless
dreariness, from the fetters of one\'s own ever-shifting desires. A finely
tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of
objective perception and thought. --Albert Einstein

CXLVI



Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, 

My sinful earth these rebel powers array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body\'s end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant\'s loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

  So shall thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

  And Death once dead, there\'s no more dying then.

 	--William Shakespeare

XLIII



When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow\'s form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! 

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

  All days are nights to see till I see thee,

  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

 	--William Shakespeare

A false enchantment can all too easily last a lifetime.
W. H. Auden