2. Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small! And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite; And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar; And here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the Hall; And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light; But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star! 3. When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race? I met her to-day with her brother, but not to her brother I bow'd; 1 I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor; But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her beautiful face. O child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud; Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal; I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way: For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 5. We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower; Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed? Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour; We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame ; However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. 6. A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race. As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man : He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too base? 7. The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain, An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor; 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 Shall I is wide. weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a Hungary fail? |