And bore thee where I could not see Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste; And think that, somewhere in the waste, The Shadow sits and waits for me. XXIII. Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits; Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads; And crying, how changed from where it ran Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan: When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought, Ere thought could wed itself with Speech: And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood: And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady. XXIV. And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day Is dash’d with wandering isles of night. If all was good and fair we met, This earth had been the Paradise It never look’d to human eyes Since Adam left his garden yet. And is it that the haze of grief Hath stretch’d my former joy so great? The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief? Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein? XXV. I know that this was Life,--the track Whereon with equal feet we fared; And then, as now, the day prepared The daily burden for the back. But this it was that made me move As light as carrier-birds in air; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love: Nor could I weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him. XXVI. Still onward winds the dreary way; I with it; for I long to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongues may say. And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the moulder’d tree, And towers fall’n as soon as built-- Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Him is no before) In more of life true life no more, And Love the indifference to be, So might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To cloak me from my proper scorn. XXVII.