"More than the singer are these. Weak is the tremor of pain That thrills in his mournfullest chord To that which once ran through his soul. Cold the elation of joy In his gladdest, airiest song, To that which of old in his youth Fill'd him and made him divine. Hardly his voice at its best Gives us a sense of the awe, The vastness, the grandeur, the gloom Of the unlit gulph of himself. "Ye know not yourselves; and your bards-- The clearest, the best, who have read Most in themselves--have beheld Less than they left unreveal'd. Ye express not yourselves;--can you make With marble, with colour, with word, What charm'd you in others re-live? Can thy pencil, O artist! restore The figure, the bloom of thy love, As she was in her morning of spring? Canst thou paint the ineffable smile Of her eyes as they rested on thine? Can the image of life have the glow, The motion of life itself? "Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me, The mateless, the one, will ye know? Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast, My longing, my sadness, my joy? Will ye claim for your great ones the gift To have render'd the gleam of my skies, To have echoed the moan of my seas, Utter'd the voice of my hills? When your great ones depart, will ye say: _All things have suffer'd a loss,_ _Nature is hid in their grave?_ "Race after race, man after man, Have thought that my secret was theirs, Have dream'd that I lived but for them, That they were my glory and joy. --They are dust, they are changed, they are gone! I remain." THE YOUTH OF MAN We, O Nature, depart, Thou survivest us! this, This, I know, is the law. Yes! but more than this, Thou who seest us die Seest us change while we live; Seest our dreams, one by one, Seest our errors depart; Watchest us, Nature! throughout, Mild and inscrutably calm. Well for us that we change! Well for us that the power Which in our morning-prime Saw the mistakes of our youth, Sweet, and forgiving, and good, Sees the contrition of age!