So be it: yet, O Good and Great, In whom in this bedarkened state I fain am struggling to believe, Let me not ever cease to grieve, Nor lose the consciousness of ill Within me;—and refusing still To recognise in things around What cannot truly there be found, Let me not feel, nor be it true, That, while each daily task I do, I still am giving day by day My precious things within away (Those thou didst give to keep as thine) And casting, do whate’er I may, My heavenly pearls to earthly swine. 1841 _A SONG OF AUTUMN._ My wind is turned to bitter north, That was so soft a south before; My sky, that shone so sunny bright, With foggy gloom is clouded o’er: My gay green leaves are yellow-black, Upon the dank autumnal floor; For love, departed once, comes back No more again, no more. A roofless ruin lies my home, For winds to blow and rains to pour; One frosty night befell, and lo! I find my summer days are o’er: The heart bereaved, of why and how Unknowing, knows that yet before It had what e’en to Memory now Returns no more, no more. _τὸ καλόν._ I have seen higher, holier things than these, And therefore must to these refuse my heart, Yet am I panting for a little ease; I’ll take, and so depart. Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away, Her high and cherished visions to forget, And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay So vast, so dread a debt? How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet, Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again, Bethink thee of the debt! —Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these, And therefore must to these thy heart refuse? With the true best, alack, how ill agrees That best that thou would’st choose! The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above; Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do: Amid the things allowed thee live and love; Some day thou shalt it view. 1841 _Χρυσέα κλῄς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ._ If, when in cheerless wanderings, dull and cold, A sense of human kindliness hath found us, We seem to have around us An atmosphere all gold, ’Midst darkest shades a halo rich of shine, An element, that while the bleak wind bloweth, On the rich heart bestoweth Imbreathèd draughts of wine; Heaven guide, the cup be not, as chance may be, To some vain mate given up as soon as tasted! No, nor on thee be wasted, Thou trifler, Poesy! Heaven grant the manlier heart, that timely, ere Youth fly, with life’s real tempest would be coping; The fruit of dreamy hoping Is, waking, blank despair. 1841 _THE SILVER WEDDING._[2] The Silver Wedding! on some pensive ear From towers remote as sound the silvery bells, To-day from one far unforgotten year A silvery faint memorial music swells.