Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ!

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed;
The best of his skill he has tried;

His feelers, methinks, I can see him put forth

To the east and the west, to the south and the north; But he finds neither guide-post nor guide.

How his spindles sink under him, foot, leg, and thigh;
His eyesight and hearing are lost;

Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws;
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze
Are glued to his sides by the frost.

No brother, no mate has he near him-while I
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my love;
As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,

As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,
And woodbines were hanging above.

Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless thing!
Thy life I would gladly sustain

Till summer comes up from the south, and with crowds Of thy brethren a march thou shouldst sound through the clouds,

And back to the forests again!

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR.
WHO is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought;

Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn ;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care:
Who, doomed to go in company with pain,
And fear, and bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower;
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves,
Of their bad influence, and their good receives;
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable-because occasions rise

So often that demand such sacrifice;

More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
"Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He fixes good on good alone, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;

And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state:
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,

A constant influence, a peculiar grace;

But who, if he be called upon to face

Some awful moment to which heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover; and attired

With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,

Come when it will, is equal to the need:
He who though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity

It is his darling passion to approve;

More brave for this, that he hath much to love :-
'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high
Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,

From well to better, daily self-surpassed:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must go to dust without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name,

Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of heaven's applause:
This is the happy warrior; this is he
Whom every man in arms should wish to be.

A POET'S EPITAPH.

ART thou a statesman, in the van
Of public business trained and bred?
First learn to love one living man;
Then mayst thou think upon the dead.

A lawyer art thou?-draw not nigh;
Go, carry to some fitter place
The keenness of that practised eye,
The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a man of purple cheer?
A rosy man, right plump to see?
Approach; yet, doctor, not too near:
This grave no cushion is for thee.
Or art thou one of gallant pride,
A soldier, and no man of chaff?
Welcome !-but lay thy sword aside,
And lean upon a peasant's staff.

Physician art thou? One, all eyes,
Philosopher! a fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanise
Upon his mother's grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,
O turn aside, and take, I pray,
That he below may rest in peace,
That abject thing, thy soul, away!
A moralist perchance appears:

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:
And he has neither eyes nor ears;
Himself his world, and his own God:

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling
Nor form, nor feeling, great nor small;
A reasoning self-sufficient thing,
An intellectual all in all !

Shut close the door; press down the latch;
Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch
Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is he, with modest looks,
And clad in homely russet brown?
He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,
Or fountain in a noonday grove;
And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,
Of hill and valley he has viewed;
And impulses of deeper birth
Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie
Some random truths he can impart,
The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.