Another analogy for his varying moods of grief.

XX.

1. The lesser griefs that may be said,

That breathe a thousand tender vows,
Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;

2. Who speak their feeling as it is,

And weep the fulness from the mind: "It will be hard," they say, "to find Another service such as this."

3. My lighter moods are like to these,
That out of words a comfort win;

5.

But there are other griefs within, And tears that at their fountain freeze;

For by the hearth the children sit

Cold in that atmosphere of death,

And scarce endure to draw the breath,

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit:

But open converse is there none,

So much the vital spirits sink

To see the vacant chair, and think, "How good! how kind! and he is gone.

SECTION III. CALMER MOODS, MAINLY RETROSPECTIVE

XXI.

Though the poet is criticised for putting his sorrow into song, his expression is inevitable.

1. I sing to him that rests below,

And, since the grasses round me wave,
I take the grasses of the grave,

And make them pipes whereon to blow.

2.

The traveller hears me now and then, And sometimes harshly will he speak "This fellow would make weakness weak,

And melt the waxen hearts of men.'

3. Another answers, "Let him be,

He loves to make parade of pain, That with his piping he may gain The praise that comes to constancy." 4. A third is wroth: "Is this an hour For private sorrow's barren song, When more and more the people throng

The chairs and thrones of civil power?

5. "A time to sicken and to swoon,

V

When Science reaches forth her arms To feel from world to world, and charms

Her secret from the latest moon?"

6. Behold, ye speak an idle thing;
Ye never knew the sacred dust:
I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
7. And one is glad; her note is gay,

For now her little ones have ranged;
And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stolen away.

XXII.

Happy memo- 1. The path by which we twain did go,

ries on the

path that

led to the

Shadow.

Which led by tracts that pleased us

well,

Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow;

2. And we with singing cheer'd the way,

And, crown'd with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,

And glad at heart from May to May:

3. But where the path we walk'd began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
'death

4. Who broke our fair companionship,

And spread his mantle dark and cold, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,

And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
And think that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.

XXIII.

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
Or breaking into song by fits,
Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,

2. Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
I wander, often falling lame,

And looking back to whence I came
Or on to where the pathway leads;

3. And crying, How changed from where

ran

Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb,

But all the lavish hills would hum

The murmur of a happy Pan:

Query: How much of the brightness of the past is due to imagina. tion?

4. When each by turns was guide to each,
And Fancy light from Fancy caught,

And Thought leapt out to wed with
Thought

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

5. And all we met was fair and good,

And all was good that Time could
bring,

And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood

6. And many an old philosophy

On Argive heights divinely sang,
And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.

XXIV.

1. And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of Day
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.

2. If all was good and fair we met,

This earth had been the Paradise
It never look'd to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.

3. And is it that the haze of grief

Makes former gladness loom so great!
The lowness of the present state,

That sets the past in this relief?

4. Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far,
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not when we moved therein ?

XXV.

Answer: None, 1. I know that this was Life, the track

for the presence of Love glorified it.

He must be
lieve love
immortal
or die.

Whereon with equal feet we fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back.

2. But this it was that made me move
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:

3. Nor could I weary, heart or limb,

When mighty Love would cleave in
twain

The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.

XXVI.

1. Still onward winds the dreary way;
I with it; for I long to prove

No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.

2. And if that eye which watches guilt

And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder'd tree, And towers fall'n as soon as built

3. O, if indeed that eye foresee

Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,

4. Then might I find, ere yet the morn
Breaks hither over Indian seas,
That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.