Ignorance is not bliss; to have known Love is blessedness. XXVII. 1. I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods: 2. I envy not the beast that takes His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes; 3. Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. 4. I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most: 'T is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. CYCLE II. DOUBTS AND WISTFUL YEARNINGS SECTION IV. CHRISTMAS-TIDE, AND THE QUESTIONINGS IT SUGGESTS CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE: A sad MOODS OF PERPLEXITY AND DOUBT XXVIII. 1. The time draws near the birth of Christ: 2. Four voices of four hamlets round, Were shut between me and the sound: 3. Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 4. This year I slept and woke with pain, And that my hold on life would break 5. But they my troubled spirit rule, For they controll'd me when a boy; He is in sympathy with the Christmas festivities since they, too, do not love change and death. XXIX. 1. With such compelling cause to grieve 2. Which brings no more a welcome guest To enrich the threshold of the night 3. Yet go, and while the holly boughs Make one wreath more for Use and That guard the portals of the house; 4. Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new; Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die. XXX. The day, sad 1. With trembling fingers did we weave as it is, sug gests the glad thought of immortality. The holly round the Christmas hearth; And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 2. At our old pastimes in the hall. We gamboll'd, making vain pretence 3. We paused: the winds were in the beech: We heard them sweep the winter land; And in a circle hand-in-hand Sat silent, looking each at each. |