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:

And many an old philosophy

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

XXIV.

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.

If all was good and fair we met,

This earth had been the Paradise

It never look'd to human eyes

Since Adam left his garden yet.

And is it that the haze of grief

Hath stretch'd my former joy so great?

The lowness of the present state,

That sets the past in this relief?

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.

I KNOW that this was Life,-the track
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.

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:

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.

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.

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

Oh, 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,

So might I find, ere yet the morn

Breaks hither over Indian seas,

That Shadow waiting with the keys,

To cloak me from my proper scorn.

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet born within the cage That never knew the summer woods:

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 ;

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.

I hold it true, whate'er befall ;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.