Yet again: consider them of old, the good, the great, the learned, Who have blessed the world by wisdom, and glorified their God by purity. Did those speed in favour? were they the loved and the admired? Was every prophet had in honour? and every deserving one remembered to his praise? What shall I say of yonder band, a glorious cloud of witnesses, The scorned, defamed, insulted,--but the excellent of earth? It were weariness to count up noble names, neglected in their lives, Whom none esteemed, nor cared to love, till death had sealed them his. For good men are the health of the world, valued only when it perisheth, Like water, light, and air, all precious in their absence. Who hath considered the blessing of his breath, till the poison of an asthma struck him? Who hath regarded the just pulses of his heart, till spasm or paralysis have stopped them? Even thus, an unobserved routine of daily grace and wisdom, When no more here, had worship of a world, whose penitence atoned for its neglect. And living genius is seen among infirmities, wherefrom the commoner are free; And other rival men of mind crowd this arena of contention; And there be many cares; and a man knoweth little of his brother; Feebly we appreciate a motive, and slowly keep pace with a feeling: And social difference is much; and experience teacheth sadly, How great the treachery of friends, how dangerous the courtesy of enemies. So, the sum of all these things operateth largely upon all men, Hedging us about with thorns, to cramp our yearning sympathies, And we grow materialized in mind, forgetting what we see not, But, immersed in perceptions of the present, keep things absent out of thought: Thus, where ingratitude, and guilt, and labour, and selfishness would harden, Humbly will the good man bow, unmurmuring, to Neglect.