I said, "When I am gone away, 'He dared not tarry,' men will say, Doing dishonour to my clay.' "This is more vile," he made reply, "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die. "Sick art thou-a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still. "Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? "The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf. 66 Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, "Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, "From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride! "Nay-rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise. 66 When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung. "I sung the joyful Pæan clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear— "Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life 66 Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love 66 As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about "To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law: "At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed, 66 To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause— 66 In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown; 66 Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears: "Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman's line is broke, And all the war is roll'd in smoke." "Yea!" said the voice, " thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood. 66 If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour? "Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all. "Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little-worth. "That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee-hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade; |