Only a driving wreck,

And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck

With anguish'd face and flying hair

Grasping the rudder hard,

Still bent to make some port he knows not where,

Still standing for some false, impossible shore.
And sterner comes the roar

Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom,

And he too disappears, and comes no more.

Is there no life, but these alone?

Madman or slave, must man be one?

Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain!
Clearness divine!

Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign
Of languor, though so calm, and, though so great,
Are yet untroubled and unpassionate;

Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,

And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!

I will not say that your mild deeps retain

A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain

Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vainBut I will rather say that you remain

A world above man's head, to let him see

How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency!

How it were good to abide there, and breathe free ;
How fair a lot to fill

Is left to each man still!

THE BURIED LIFE.

LIGHT flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.

Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,

And turn those limpid eyes on mine,

And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal

To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd

Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved

Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest

Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!-doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?-must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,

Even for a moment, can get free

Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;

For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which foresaw

How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity-
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life

Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see

The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.

But often, in the world's most crowded streets,

But often, in the din of strife,

There rises an unspeakable desire

After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire

Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us-to know

Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.

And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;

But hardly have we, for one little hour,

Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—

Hardly had skill to utter one of all

The nameless feelings that course through our breast,

But they course on for ever unexpress'd.