Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,…Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things,

And makes perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown:

Answer: These lines have been taken from the choric song of the poem “The Lotos Eaters” by Alfred Tennyson. Here, through the speech of the sailors, Tennyson points out a basic issue of human existence.

After eating the lotos fruits of the strange island, the mariners’ reasoning powers become perverted. They wish to struggle no more. They want absolute peace and tranquillity. The mariners observe that everything under the sun enjoys rest. Everything is born, passes a natural course of life, and finally dies. This seems to be an automatic process. In contrast, man’s life is a continual struggle. It is the struggle against hunger, disease, suffering, and death. Man’s life is crushed with sorrow and still, he is thrown from one sorrow to another. The irony of human existence is that, in spite of being the best of the creations, man has to encounter the worst struggle. Thus, by drawing upon a contrast between human life and all other things on this earth, the mariners want to rationalize their plan to live on this island in a state of permanent rest, peace, and tranquillity.