Of things all mortal, or to use
A little patience ere I die;

"Twere 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 Æonian 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.

LIV.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

LV.

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

LVI.

"So careful of the type?" but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.

"Thou makest thine appeal to me:

I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more." And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love Creation's final law

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shriek'd against his creed—

Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!

O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil.

LVII.

Peace; come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:

Peace; come away: we do him wrong

To sing so wildly: let us go.

Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; But half my life I leave behind: Methinks my friend is richly shrined; But I shall pass; my work will fail.

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,

One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever look'd with human eyes.

I hear it now, and o'er and o'er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;

And "Ave, Ave, Ave," said, "Adieu, adieu" for evermore.

LXXIII.

So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
How know I what had need of thee,
For thou wert strong as thou wert true?

The fame is quench'd that I foresaw,
The head hath miss'd an earthly wreath:
I curse not nature, no, nor death;
For nothing is that errs from law.

We pass; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age? It rests with God.

O hollow wraith of dying fame,
Fade wholly, while the soul exults,
And self-infolds the large results
Of force that would have forged a name.

LXXIV.

As sometimes in a dead man's face,

To those that watch it more and more, A likeness, hardly seen before,

Comes out-to some one of his race:

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,
I see thee what thou art, and know
Thy likeness to the wise below,
Thy kindred with the great of old.

But there is more than I can see,

And what I see I leave unsaid,