"Alas, and hast thou then so soon forgot
The bond that with thy gift of song did go—
Severe as fate, fixt and unchangeable?
Even tho' his heart be sounding its own knell,
Dost thou not know this is the poet's lot:
'Mid sounds of war, in halcyon times of peace,
To strike the ringing wire and not to cease;
In hours of general happiness to swell
The common joy; and when the people cry
With piteous voice loud to the pitiless sky,
'T is his to frame the universal prayer
And breathe the balm of song upon the accursèd air?"
"But 't is not, O my master! that I borrow
The robe of grief to deck my brother's sorrow—
Mine eyes have seen beyond the veil of youth;
I know what Life is, have caught sight of Truth;
My heart is dead within me; a thick pall
Darkens the midday sun."
"And dost thou call
This sorrow? Call this knowledge? O thou blind
And ignorant! Know, then, thou yet shalt find,
Ere thy full days are numbered 'neath the sun,
Thou, in thy shallow youth, hadst but begun
To guess what knowledge is, what grief may be,
And all the infinite sum of human misery;
Shalt find that for each drop of perfect good
Thou payest, at last, a threefold price in blood;
What is most noble in thee,—every thought
Highest and best,—crusht, spat upon, and brought
To an open shame; thy natural ignorance
Counted thy crime; the world all ruled by chance,
Save that the good most suffer; but above
