The Consolation of Philosophy · Boethius

Book IV: Song VI: The Universal Aim

67 of 80 · 2 min of reading

Wouldst thou with unclouded mind

View the laws by God designed,

Lift thy steadfast gaze on high

To the starry canopy;

See in rightful league of love

All the constellations move.

Fiery Sol, in full career,

Ne'er obstructs cold Phoebe's sphere;

When the Bear, at heaven's height,

Wheels his coursers' rapid flight,

Though he sees the starry train

Sinking in the western main,

He repines not, nor desires

In the flood to quench his fires.

In true sequence, as decreed,

Daily morn and eve succeed;

Vesper brings the shades of night,

Lucifer the morning light.

Love, in alternation due,

Still the cycle doth renew,

And discordant strife is driven

From the starry realm of heaven.

Thus, in wondrous amity,

Warring elements agree;

Hot and cold, and moist and dry,

Lay their ancient quarrel by;

High the flickering flame ascends,

Downward earth for ever tends.

So the year in spring's mild hours

Loads the air with scent of flowers;

Summer paints the golden grain;

Then, when autumn comes again,

Bright with fruit the orchards glow;

Winter brings the rain and snow.

Thus the seasons' fixed progression,

Tempered in a due succession,

Nourishes and brings to birth

All that lives and breathes on earth.

Then, soon run life's little day,

All it brought it takes away.

But One sits and guides the reins,

He who made and all sustains;

King and Lord and Fountain-head,

Judge most holy, Law most dread;

Now impels and now keeps back,

Holds each waverer in the track.

Else, were once the power withheld

That the circling spheres compelled

In their orbits to revolve,

This world's order would dissolve,

And th' harmonious whole would all

In one hideous ruin fall.

But through this connected frame

Runs one universal aim;

Towards the Good do all things tend,

Many paths, but one the end.

For naught lasts, unless it turns

Backward in its course, and yearns

To that Source to flow again

Whence its being first was ta'en.

VII.

'Dost thou, then, see the consequence of all that we have said?'

'Nay; what consequence?'

'That absolutely every fortune is good fortune.'

'And how can that be?' said I.

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End of part 67 of 80