What shall I do when blows blind me?
How fare on when counsels cross?
Where shall I turn when life behind me
Seems but a course run at a loss?
Through what throes shall I beat to windward,
Uncontent with a lesser port?
Whom shall I trust when Heaven of me,
Heaven itself, seems making sport?

How shall I answer a knave's rating,
Done in a liar's arithmetic?
What shall I say to a fool's prating,
In destructiveness as quick?
How shall I meet a friend's treason,
When it has scuttled the good ship Faith?
Whose are the stars if wide disaster
At its will can do me scathe?

Answer there is—a brief order,
‘Bear all blows and yet be free;
Let no bitterness set a border
To your will, no treachery.
Speak—if you are the bigger for it,
Keep to silence if you are less,
And if the stars indeed be Godless,
Steer still by their godliness.’