Then close and dark my arms I spread, May never saw dismember thee, And shadow'd all her rest

Of love that never found his earthly close, My work shall answer, since I knew the What sequel? Streaming eyes and break

ing hearts?

right

And did it; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man.
So let me think 'tis well for thee and

me

Still father Truth? O shall the braggart Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine

shout

For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself

Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart

so slow

To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to

me,

Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun ?
would dwell
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of him- Faltering, would break its syllables, to

self?

One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,

keep

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were My own full-tuned,-hold passion in a

all,

Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless

days,

The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise

thou

leash,

And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!)
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that
weigh'd

Upon my brain, my senses and my soul !
For Love himself took part against

himself

To warn us off, and Duty loved of LoveArt more thro' Love, and greater than thy O this world's curse,―beloved but hated

The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will

The slow sad hours that bring us all Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended

And all good things from evil, brought My blessing! Should my Shadow cross

O then like those, who clench their Old James was with me: we that day had

Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, Have ebb and flow conditioning their

there,

And found him in Llanberis : then we

crost

Between the lakes, and clamber'd half

way up

The counter side; and that same song of

his

march,

And slow and sure comes up the golden

year.

"When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,

But smit with freër light shall slowly melt

He told me; for I banter'd him, and In many streams to fatten lower lands,

swore

They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
That, setting the how much before the
how,

And light shall spread, and man be liker

man

Thro' all the season of the golden year.
'Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be
wrens?

Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, If all the world were falcons, what of that?
'Give,
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
Cram us with all,' but count not me the But he not less the eagle. Happy days

herd!

To which They call me what they

will,' he said:

Roll onward, leading up the golden year. 'Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press;

'But I was born too late the fair new Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;

forms,

That float about the threshold of an age,
Like truths of Science waiting to be

caught

Knit land to land, and blowing haven

ward

With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,

Catch me who can, and make the catcher Enrich the markets of the golden year.

'We sleep and wake and sleep, but Thro' all the circle of the golden year?'

all things move;

The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her

ellipse;

Thus far he flow'd, and ended; where

upon

'Ah, folly !' in mimic cadence answer'd James

And human things returning on them-Ah, folly! for it lies so far away,

know not me.

With that he struck his staff against That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and the rocks And broke it,-James,—you know him, I cannot rest from travel: I will drink -old, but full Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Of force and choler, and firm upon his Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with feet, And like an oaken stock in winters That loved me, and alone; on shore, and

wood, O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat :

'What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back,

those

when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of

men

The more fools they,-we forward: And manners, climates, councils, governments,

dreamers both :

You most, that in an age, when every Myself not least, but honour'd of them hour all;

Must sweat her sixty minutes to the And drunk delight of battle with my death, peers,

Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met;

rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

plunge

His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works,

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose
margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

This same grand year is ever at the To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

doors.'

He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast

As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled

on life

Were all too little, and of one to me The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo Little remains: but every hour is saved