For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself

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Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law, System, and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the sun? 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 himself?

If this were thus, if this, indeed, were 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

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Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
As flow but once a life.
The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and
died.

Then follow'd counsel, comfort, and the words

That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;

Till now the dark was worn, and over

head

The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night, the summer night, that paused

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Among her stars to hear us, stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen; all the wheels of Time

Spun round in station, but the end had

come.

The counter side; and that same song of his

He told me, for I banter'd him and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied poet in the feverons days to That, setting the how much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, 'Give,

Cram us with all,' but count not me the herd!

To whichThey call me what they will,' he said:

'But I was born too late; the fair new forms,

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

Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd

Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.
But if you care indeed to listen, hear
These measured words, my work of yester-

morn:

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