--No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! For what wears out the life of mortal men? ’Tis that from change to change their being rolls; ’Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, And numb the elastic powers, Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our well-worn life, and are--what we have been. Thou hast not lived, why shouldst thou perish, so? Thou hadst _one_ aim, _one_ business, _one_ desire; Else wert thou long since numbered with thedead! Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! The generations of thy peers are fled, And we ourselves shall go; But thou possessest an immortal lot, And we imagine thee exempt from age, And living as thou liv’st on Glanvil’s page, Because thou hadst--what we, alas! have not. For early didst thou leave the world, with powers Fresh, undiverted to the world without, Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. O life unlike to ours! Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, And each half lives a hundred different lives; Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, Light half-believers of our casual creeds, Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; For whom each year we see Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitate and falter life away, And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day-- Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too? Yes, we await it! but it still delays, And then we suffer! and amongst us one, Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne; And all his store of sad experience he Lays bare of wretched days; Tells us his misery’s birth and growth and signs, And how the dying spark of hope was fed, And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, And all his hourly varied anodynes. This for our wisest! and we others pine, And wish the long unhappy dream would end, And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; With close-lipped patience for our only friend,-- Sad patience, too near neighbor to despair,-- But none has hope like thine! Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, And every doubt long blown by time away.