Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just,

Be blown about the desert dust, Or seal'd within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music match'd with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!

O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress ? Behind the veil, behind the veil.

G

LVI.

PEACE, come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:

Peace, come away; we do him wrong

To sing so wildly; let us go.

Come, let us go, your cheeks are pale,
But half my life I leave behind:
Methinks my friend is richly shrined,
But I shall pass; my work will fail.

Yet in these ears till hearing dies,

One set slow bell will seem to toll

The passing of the sweetest soul That ever look'd with human eyes.

I hear it now,

and o'er and o'er,

Eternal greetings to the dead;

And Ave, Ave, Ave,' said,

'Adieu, adieu' for evermore!

LVII.

IN those sad words I took farewell:
Like echoes in sepulchral halls,
As drop by drop the water falls
In vaults and catacombs, they fell;

And, falling, idly broke the peace

Of hearts that beat from day to day,
Half-conscious of their dying clay,

And those cold crypts where they shall cease.

The high Muse answer'd: 'Wherefore grieve Thy brethren with a fruitless tear?

Abide a little longer here,

And thou shalt take a nobler leave.'

LVIII.

O SORROW, wilt thou live with me
No casual mistress, but a wife,

My bosom-friend and half of life;

As I confess it needs must be;

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood,
Be sometimes lovely like a bride,
And put thy harsher moods aside,
If thou wilt have me wise and good.

My centred passion cannot move,
Nor will it lessen from to-day,

But I'll have leave at times to play

As with the creature of my love;

And set thee forth, for thou art mine,

With so much hope for years to come,
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some

Could hardly tell what name were thine.

LIX.

HE past; a soul of nobler tone:

My spirit loved and loves him yet,

Like some poor girl whose heart is set On one whose rank exceeds her own.

He mixing with his proper sphere,

She finds the baseness of her lot;

Half jealous of she knows not what, And envying all that meet him there.

The little village looks forlorn;

She sighs amid her narrow days, Moving about the household ways, In that dark house where she was born.

The foolish neighbours come and go,

And tease her till the day draws by; At night she weeps, 'How vain am I! How should he love a thing so low?'