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

To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou

wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered 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.

'T is 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.

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

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

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

Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is thronged 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 foeman's

ground,

When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that

Honor 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, oh 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 tumult of my

life;

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

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

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could

see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic

sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly

bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central

blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battleflags were furled

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful

realm in awe,

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal

law.

So I triumphed, ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry,

Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out

of joint,

Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping

nigher,

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowlydying fire.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose

runs,

And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youth

ful joys,

Though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a