Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art

staring at the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,

To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the 'Never, never,' whisper'd by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to

thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace ; for a tender

voice will cry.

'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down my latest rival brings thee rest.

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.

Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty

part,

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

'They were dangerous guides the feelings-she

herself was not exempt―

Truly, she herself had suffer'd'- Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it lower yet-be happy! wherefore should I care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which

I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foe

man's ground,

When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that

earlier page.

Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before

the strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the

Yearning for the large excitement that the

coming years would yield,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn ;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men :

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new :

That which they have done but earnest of the

things that they shall do: