"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! 66 Nay rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days 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, "Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life "Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of heat and love— "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, "To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause "In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown: "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. "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 ge, 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 Of knitted purport, all were vain. "Thou hadst not between death and birth 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; "Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind. "For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon. 66 Cry, faint not either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn. "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. |