The fancy thin!—I let him keep his word; I would not argue.—Still, with care not loath To guard some credit yet for having sense, I hinted at the truth,—how I had changed, And how had changed my thoughts about myself, About my life-work. “For that fancy, friend, That fancy thin my own true self reveal’d. If spray it were, it left a constant sea That heaves and heaves. With moods that move like mine, So madden’d by traditions, calm’d by dreams, Content scarce ever, till at hazard dash’d Through ways that lead to sheer uncertainty, Where fancy more may seek than matter shows In things that are but matter,—what am I For life-work such as priesthood, sure in creeds And sureties for the soul, whereon may lean All weaker faith, with warrant not to bend?” LIII. Then Elbert laugh’d. “Ah, were you but a bow, Your bending most would shoot most.—Not a priest? A man alone?—You yet a brother are To many a soul that sails the sea of life, Where oft the horizon trembles with the change Of wind and wave; and hope, too hale, oft mourns Fair promises, like skies that fade in fog. A man alone?—And yet the moods of man May make men love us for our manliness, Who draw them, Christ-like through our sympathy, Toward self,—God’s image here, and thus toward Him.” “But draw them how?” I cried. “Woe me, I stand, A poet born, who deem’d his Muse had fled; That time and trouble had a stone roll’d up, Her sweet form sealing in their sepulchre. And yet one breath of love could rouse the dead. All day the subtle spirit haunts me now, Thrill’d through and through to sound her sweetness forth.” “Then let it sound!” he said. “Rare rest it were, Were all one’s recreation freshen’d thus; And slumber serenaded by the Muse.”