The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into

folly and vice.

I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate

brain;

For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn

it, were more

Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a

garden of spice.

8.

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by

the veil.

Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them about?

Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world

is wide.

Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a

Hungary fail?

Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with

knout?

I have not made the world, and He that made it

will guide.

9.

Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland

ways,

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace

be my lot,

Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the

hubbub of lies;

From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are

ever hissing dispraise

Because their natures are little, and, whether he

heed it or not,

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of

poisonous flies.

10.

And most of all would I flee from the cruel

madness of love,

The honey of poison-flowers and all the measure

less ill.

Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife.

Your mother is mute in her grave as her image

in marble above;

Your father is ever in London, you wander about

at your will;

You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the

lilies of life.

V.

1.

A VOICE by the cedar tree,

In the meadow under the Hall!

She is singing an air that is known to me,

A passionate ballad gallant and gay,

A martial song like a trumpet's call !
Singing alone in the morning of life,

In the happy morning of life and of May,
Singing of men that in battle array,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,

March with banner and bugle and fife

To the death, for their native land.

2.

Maud with her exquisite face,

And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,

And feet like sunny gems on an English green, Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, Singing of Death, and of Honour that cannot die, Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean

And myself so languid and base.

Silence, beautiful voice!

3.

Be still, for you only trouble the mind

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,
A glory I shall not find.

Still! I will hear you no more,

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice
But to move to the meadow and fall before

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore,

Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind,

Not her, not her, but a voice.