As from the mountain marble rude
The growing statue rises fair,
She from immortal patience hewed
The limbs of ever-young despair.
There is no bliss so new and dear,
It hath not them far-off allured.
All things that we have yet to fear
They have already long endured.
Nor is there any sorrow more
Than hath ere now befallen these,
Whose gaze is as an opening door
On wild interminable seas.
O Youth, run fast upon thy feet,
With full joy haste thee to be filled,
And out of moments brief and sweet
Thou shalt a power for ages build.
Does thy heart falter? Here, then, seek
What strength is in thy kind! With pain
Immortal bowed, these mortals weak
Gentle and unsubdued remain."
That I think is first-rate poetry. It does not attribute to human agency what possibly lies beyond its scope, in order either to praise or blame. It recognises that some virtues are almost always the work of adversity, others of prosperity; some proper to youth and health, others to age and suffering; and it is thus considerate while rapt in an ecstasy of contemplation such as can but clothe itself in delightful phrases and felicitous images.
To my mind the stanza about aged stricken folk is the finest:
"There is no bliss so new and dear,
It hath not them far-off allured.
All things that we have yet to fear
They have already long endured"—
