You have heard nothing; of course I know you can have heard nothing. Ah, well, more than once I have broken my purpose, and sometimes, Only too often, have looked for the little lake steamer to bring him. But it is only fancy,—I do not really expect it. Oh, and you see I know so exactly how he would take it: Finding the chances prevail against meeting again, he would banish Forthwith every thought of the poor little possible hope, which I myself could not help, perhaps, thinking only too much of; He would resign himself, and go. I see it exactly. So I also submit, although in a different manner. Can you not really come? We go very shortly to England. * * * * * _So go forth to the world, to the good report and the evil!_ _Go, little book! thy tale, is it not evil and good?_ _Go, and if strangers revile, pass quietly by without answer._ _Go, and if curious friends ask of thy rearing and age,_ _Say, ‘I am flitting about many years from brain unto brain of_ _Feeble and restless youths born to inglorious days:_ _But,’ so finish the word, ‘I was writ in a Roman chamber,_ _When from Janiculan heights thundered the cannon of France.’_ SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH. _SEVEN SONNETS ON THE THOUGHT OF DEATH._[15] I That children in their loveliness should die Before the dawning beauty, which we know Cannot remain, has yet begun to go; That when a certain period has passed by, People of genius and of faculty, Leaving behind them some result to show, Having performed some function, should forego The task which younger hands can better ply, Appears entirely natural. But that one Whose perfectness did not at all consist In things towards forming which time can have done Anything,—whose sole office was to exist, Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be Is the extreme of all perplexity. II That there are better things within the womb Of Nature than to our unworthy view She grants for a possession, may be true: The cycle of the birthplace and the tomb Fulfils at least the order and the doom Of earth, that has not ordinance to do More than to withdraw and to renew, To show one moment and the next resume: The law that we return from whence we came, May for the flowers, beasts, and most men remain; If for ourselves, we ask not nor complain: But for a being that demands the name We highest deem—a Person and a Soul— It troubles us that this should be the whole. III