VII.

WHEN I review the course that I have run,
And count the loss of all my wasted days,
I find no argument for joy or praise

In whatsoe'er my soul hath thought or done.
I am a desert, and the kindly sun
On me hath vainly spent his fertile rays.
Then wherefore do I tune my idle lays,
Or dream that haply I may be the one
Of the vain thousands, that shall win a place
Among the Poets,-that a single rhyme

Of my poor wit's devising may find grace
To breed high memories in the womb of time?
But to confound the time the Muse I woo;

Then 'tis but just that time confound me too.

VIII.

A LONELY wanderer upon earth am I,
The waif of nature-like uprooted weed

Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed,
A frail dependent of the fickle sky.

Far, far away, are all my natural kin:

The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry,
Almost hath grown a mere fond memory.

Where is my sister's smile? my brother's boisterous din?

Ah! nowhere now. A matron grave and sage,

A holy mother is that sister sweet.

And that bold brother is a pastor meet

To guide, instruct, reprove a sinful

age,

Almost I fear, and yet I fain would greet;

So far astray hath been my pilgrimage.

IX.

How many meanings may a single sigh
Heave from the bosom; early, yet too late,
I learn'd with sighs to audit mine estate,
While yet I deem'd my hope was only shy
And wishing to be woo'd. Fain to descry

The little cloud I thought could never vex
My vernal season, I would still perplex
With sighs the counsel of my destiny.

Still it moved on, and ever larger grew,

And still I sigh'd and sigh'd-and then I panted; For now the cloud is huge, and close to view.

It burst; the thunder roar'd, the sharp rain slanted, The tempest pass'd, and I was almost fain

To sigh forlorn, and hear the sigh again.

X.

How shall a man fore-doom'd to lone estate,
Untimely old, irreverently grey,

Much like a patch of dusky snow in May,
Dead sleeping in a hollow, all too late-
How shall so poor a thing congratulate
The blest completion of a patient wooing,
Or how commend a younger man for doing
What ne'er to do hath been his fault or fate?
There is a fable, that I once did read,

Of a bad angel, that was someway good,

And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood, Looking each way, and no way could proceed; Till at the last he purged away his sin

By loving all the joy he saw within.

XI.

IT were a state too terrible for man,
Too terrible and strange, and most unmeet,

To look into himself, his state to scan,

And find no precedent, no chart, or plan,
But think himself an embryo incomplete,
Or else a remnant of a world effete,
Some by-blow of the universal Pan,

Great nature's waif, that must by law escheat
To the liege-lord Corruption. Sad the case

Of man, who knows not wherefore he was made;
But he that knows the limits of his race

Not runs, but flies, with prosperous winds to aid;
Or if he limps, he knows his path was trod
By saints of old, who knew their way to God.