XIII

All the wide world beside us
Show like multitudinous

Puppets passing from a scene;
What but mockery can they mean,
Where I am - where thou hast been?

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES

I

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright; Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might; The breath of the moist earth is light Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

II

I see the Deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown;

I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown;

I sit upon the sands alone

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion,

How sweet! did any heart now share in my

emotion.

III

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

Nor peace within nor calm around,

Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; To me that cup has been dealt in another mea

sure.

IV

Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are;

I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care

Which I have borne and yet must bear,

Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

V

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan ;

They might lament - for I am one
Whom men love not, - and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun

Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory

yet.

SONNET

LIFT not the painted veil which those who live Call Life; though unreal shapes be pictured

there,

And it but mimic all we would believe

With colors idly spread, - behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies, who ever weave

Their shadows o'er the chasm sightless and

drear.

I knew one who had lifted it- he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,

But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendor among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.