XX.

THE lesser griefs that may be said,

That breathe a thousand tender vows,

Are but as servants in a house

Where lies the master newly dead;

Who speak their feeling as it is,

And weep the fulness from the mind: 'It will be hard' they say 'to find Another service such as this.'

My lighter moods are like to these,

That out of words a comfort win ;

But there are other griefs within, And tears that at their fountain freeze;

For by the hearth the children sit

Cold in that atmosphere of Death,

And scarce endure to draw the breath,

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit:

D

But open converse is there none,

So much the vital spirits sink

To see the vacant chair, and think,

How good! how kind! and he is gone.'

XXI.

I SING to him that rests below,

And, since the grasses round me wave, I take the grasses of the grave, And make them pipes whereon to blow.

The traveller hears me now and then,

And sometimes harshly will he speak ;

This fellow would make weakness weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men.'

Another answers, Let him be,

He loves to make parade of pain, That with his piping he may gain The praise that comes to constancy.'

A third is wroth, Is this an hour

For private sorrow's barren song,

When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power?

A time to sicken and to swoon,

When science reaches forth her arms

To feel from world to world, and charms Her secret from the latest moon?'

Behold, ye speak an idle thing:

Ye never knew the sacred dust:

I do but sing because I must, And pipe but as the linnets sing:

And unto one her note is gay,

For now her little ones have ranged;

And unto one her note is changed,

Because her brood is stol'n away.

XXII.

THE path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,

Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:

And we with singing cheer'd the way,

And crown'd with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,

And glad at heart from May to May:

But where the path we walk'd began

To slant the fifth autumnal slope, As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;

Who broke our fair companionship,

And spread his mantle dark and cold ; And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip;