On either side the black deep-furrowed path
Cut by an onward-laboring vessel's prore,
And never touches the ship-side again;
Even so we leave behind,
As, chartered by some unknown Powers,
We stem across the sea of life by night,
The joys which were not for our use designed,—
The friends to whom we had no natural right,
The homes that were not destined to be ours.
TO A GYPSY CHILD BY THE SEASHORE;
DOUGLAS, ISLE OF MAN.
Who taught this pleading to unpractised eyes?
Who hid such import in an infant's gloom?
Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise?
Who massed, round that slight brow, these clouds of doom?
Lo! sails that gleam a moment, and are gone;
The swinging waters, and the clustered pier.
Not idly earth and ocean labor on,
Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.
But thou, whom superfluity of joy
Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain,
Nor weariness, the full-fed soul's annoy,
Remaining in thy hunger and in thy pain;
