Saw, made my bow, and went my way. II Only the Doric little Morgue ! The dead-house where you show your drowned: Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue, Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one's debt in such a case; I plucked up heart and entered,—stalked, Keeping a tolerable face Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked : Let them! No Briton 's to be baulked! III First came the silent gazers; next, A screen of glass, we 're thankful for ; Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday, So killed themselves: and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay Fronting me, waiting to be owned. I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned. IV Poor men, God made, and all for that! Each coat dripped by the owner's bed, His bounds, his proper place of rest, Who last night tenanted on earth Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast,― Unless the plain asphalte seemed best. V How did it happen, my poor boy? You wanted to be Buonaparte And could not, so it broke your heart VI And this-why, he was red in vain, VII It's wiser being good than bad; My own hope is, a sun will pierce PROSPICE. FEAR death?-to feel the fog in my throat, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote The power of the night, the press of the storm, Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, For the journey is done and the summit attained, Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain. O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, "CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME." (See Edgar's song in "LEAR.") I My first thought was, he lied in every word, II What else should he be set for, with his staff? All travellers who might find him posted there, III If at his counsel I should turn aside Into that ominous tract which, all agree, I did turn as he pointed: neither pride Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, So much as gladness that some end might be. IV For, what with my whole world-wide wandering, With that obstreperous joy success would bring,— My heart made, finding failure in its scope.. V As when a sick man very near to death VI While some discuss if near the other graves He may not shame such tender love and stay. VI Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest, Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ So many times among "The Band "—to wit, The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed Their steps-that just to fail as they, seemed best, And all the doubt was now-should I be fit? VIII So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, IX For mark! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, |