5 Between our faces, to cast light on each? - In words, of love hid in me out of reach. If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, 5 When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove; 10 For grief indeed is love and grief beside. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love. Yet love me-wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, And fold within the wet wings of thy dove. 10 One word, ere yet the evening ends: Good-night! I'd say the griefs, the joys, The triumphs and defeats of boys, Are but repeated in our age; I'd say your woes were not less keen, 20 5 ΤΟ 15 With grizzled beards at forty-five, As erst at twelve in corduroys, And if, in time of sacred youth, We learned at home to love and pray, 33 Pray heaven that early love and truth May never wholly pass away. And in the world, as in the school, I'd say how fate may change and shift, The prize be sometimes with the fool, The race not always to the swift; The strong may yield, the good may fall, The great man be a vulgar clown, The knave be lifted over all, The kind cast pitilessly down. 20 Who knows the inscrutable design? 35 40 Blessed be he who took and gave! Why should your mother, Charles, not mine, Be weeping at her darling's grave? 60 So each shall mourn, in life's advance, Come wealth or want, come good or ill, 65 Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman. A gentleman, or old or young! And peace on earth to gentle men! 70 75 WHITHER DEPART THE BRAVE 80 To say we truly feel the pain, That keeps us still alive. - (1869) 5 10 15 20 Her rounded form was lean, And her silk was bombazine; Well I wot 35 40 55 |