The traveller hears me now and then,

And sometimes harshly will he speak : "This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men."

Another answers, "Let him be,

He loves to make parade of pain, That with his piping he may gain The praise that comes to constancy."

A third is wroth, "Is this an hour

For private sorrow's barren song, When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power?

"A time to sicken and to swoon,

When Science reaches forth her arms To feel from world to world, and charms Her secret from the latest moon ?"

Behold, ye speak an idle thing:

Ye never knew the sacred dust: I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing: And one is glad; her note is gay, For now her little ones have ranged; And one is sad; her note is changed, Because her brood is stol'n away.

XXII.

THE path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:

And we with singing cheer'd the way,

And crown'd with all the season lent, From April on to April went, And glad at heart from May to May:

But where the path we walk'd began To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended, following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;

Who broke our fair companionship,

And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,

And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
And think that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.

XXIII.

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
Or breaking into song by fits,
Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame,

And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads;

And crying, "How changed from where it ran
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb;
But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of a happy Pan:

"When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught,

And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

"And all we met was fair and good,

And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood;

"And many an old philosophy

On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady."

XXIV.

AND was the day of my delight
As sure and perfect as I say?
The very source and font of Day
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.

If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise
It never look'd to human eyes
Since Adam left his garden yet.

And is it that the haze of grief

Makes former gladness loom so great? The lowness of the present state,

That sets the past in this relief?

Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?

XXV.

I KNOW that this was Life,-the track Whereon with equal feet we fared: And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back.

But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air;

I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of love;

Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighty Love would cleave in twain
The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.

XXVI.

STILL onward winds the dreary way;

I with it: for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say.

And if that eye which watches guilt
And goodness, and hath power to see
Within the green the moulder'd tree,
And towers fall'n as soon as built,-

O, if indeed that eye foresee
Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more,
And Love the indifference to be,
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
Breaks hither over Indian seas,
That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
XXVII.

I ENVY not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;

I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes:

See thou, that countest reason ripe In holding by the law within, Thou fail not in a world of sin, And ev'n for want of such a type.

XXXIV.

My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live forevermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;

This round of green, this orb of flame,
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?

"T were hardly worth my while to choose Of things all mortal, or to use A little patience ere I die;

'T were best at once to sink to peace,
Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness, and to cease.

XXXV.

YET if some voice that man could trust Should murmur from the narrow house, "The cheeks drop in; the body bows; Man dies nor is there hope in dust:"

Might I not say, "Yet even here,

But for one hour, O Love, I strive To keep so sweet a thing alive?" But I should turn mine ears and hear

The moanings of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that swift or slow
Draw down Eonian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be;

And Love would answer with a sigh,

"The sound of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more and more, Half-dead to know that I shall die."

O me! what profits it to put

An idle case? If Death were seen At first as Death, Love had not been, Or been in narrowest working shut,

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,
Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape

Had bruised the herb and crush'd the grape, And bask'd and batten'd in the woods.

XXXVI.

THO' truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin;

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closest words shall fail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.

And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought;

Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef.

XXXVII.

URANIA speaks with darken'd brow;

"Thou pratest here where thou art least. This faith has many a purer priest, And many an abler voice than thou.

"Go down beside thy native rill,
On thy Parnassus set thy feet,
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet
About the ledges of the hill."

And my Melpomene replies,

A touch of shame upon her cheek: "I am not worthy ev'n to speak Of thy prevailing mysteries;

"For I am but an earthly Muse, And owning but a little art

To lull with song an aching heart, And render human love his dues;

"But brooding on the dear one dead, And all he said of things divine, (And dear to me as sacred wine To dying lips is all he said,)

"I murmur'd, as I came along,

Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd; And loiter'd in the Master's field, And darken'd sanctities with song."

XXXVIII.

WITH weary steps I loiter on,

Tho' always under alter'd skies The purple from the distance dies, My prospect and horizon gone.

No joy the blowing season gives, The herald melodies of spring, But in the songs I love to sing A doubtful gleam of solace lives.

If any care for what is here

Survive in spirits render'd free, Then are these songs I sing of thee Not all ungrateful to thine ear.

XXXIX.

COULD we forget the widow'd hour,
And look on Spirits breathed away,
As on a maiden in the day
When first she wears her orange-flower!

When crown'd with blessing she doth rise
To take her latest leave of home,
And hopes and light regrets that come
Make April of her tender eyes:

And doubtful joys the father move,
And tears are on the mother's face,
As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love:

Her office there to rear, to teach,
Becoming, as is meet and fit,
A link among the days, to knit
The generations each with each;
And, doubtless, unto thee is given
A life that bears immortal fruit
In such great offices as suit
The full-grown energies of heaven.
Ay me, the difference I discern!
How often shall her old fireside
Be cheer'd with tidings of the bride,
How often she herself return,