4. I'll rather take what fruit may be
Of sorrow under human skies:

"T is held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.

CIX.

Arthur's gifts 1. Heart-affluence in discursive talk

of head and

From household fountains never dry;
The critic clearness of an eye

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk;

2. Seraphic intellect and force

To seize and throw the doubts of man;
Impassion'd logic, which outran
The hearer in its fiery course;

3. High nature amorous of the good,

But touch'd with no ascetic gloom;
And passion pure in snowy bloom
Thro' all the years of April blood;

4. A love of freedom rarely felt,

Of freedom in her regal seat

Of England; not the schoolboy heat, The blind hysterics of the Celt;

5. And manhood fused with female grace In such a sort, the child would twine A trustful hand, unask'd, in thine,

And find his comfort in thy face;

6. All these have been, and thee mine eyes

Have look'd on: if they look'd in vain,

My shame is greater who remain,

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.

Arthur's influence on all he met was wonderful.

CX.

1. Thy converse drew us with delight,
The men of rathe and riper years;
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

2. On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

The proud was half disarm'd of pride,
Nor cared the serpent at thy side
To flicker with his double tongue.

3. The stern were mild when thou wert by,
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee, and the brazen fool
Was soften'd, and he knew not why;

4. While I, thy nearest, sat apart,

And felt thy triumph was as mine; And loved them more, that they were thine,

The graceful tact, the Christian art;

5. Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
But mine the love that will not tire,
And, born of love, the vague desire
That spurs an imitative will.

CXI.

He was abso- 1. The churl in spirit, up or down

lutely genuine and sincere.

Along the scale of ranks, thro' all,
To him who grasps a golden ball,
By blood a king, at heart a clown,-

2. The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil

His want in forms for fashion's sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons thro' the gilded pale;

3. For who can always act? But he,
To whom a thousand memories call,
Not being less but more than all

The gentleness he seem'd to be,

4. Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd
Each office of the social hour

To noble manners, as the flower
And native growth of noble mind;

5. Nor ever narrowness or spite,
Or villain fancy fleeting by,
Drew in the expression of an eye
Where God and Nature met in light;

6. And thus he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil'd with all ignoble use.

CXII.

His character 1. High wisdom hoids my wisdom less,

was uniquely

perfect.

That I, who gaze with temperate eyes
On glorious insufficiencies,

Set light by narrower perfectness.

2. But thou, that fillest all the room
Of all my love, art reason why
I seem to cast a careless eye

On souls, the lesser lords of doom.

3. For what wert thou? Some novel power Sprang up for ever at a touch,

And hope could never hope too much, In watching thee from hour to hour,