For mind hath its influence on mind; and no man is free but when alone; Yea, let a dog be watching thee, its eye will tend to thy restraint: Self-possession cannot be so perfect, with another intellect beside thee, It is not as a natural result, but rather the educated produce: The presence of a second spirit must control thine own, And throw it off its equipoise of peace, to balance by an effort. The common minds of common men know of this but little; What then? they know nothing of themselves: I speak to those who know. The consciousness that some are hearing, cometh as a care, The sense that some are watching near, bindeth thee to caution; And the tree of tender nerves shrinketh as a touched mimosa, Drooping like a plant in drought, with half its strength decayed. There are antipathies warning from the many, and sympathies drawing to the few, But merchant-minds have crushed the first, and cannot feel the latter: Whereas to the quickened apprehension of a keen and spiritual intellect, Antipathies are galling, and sympathies oppress, and solitude is quiet. He that dwelleth mainly by himself, heedeth most of others, But they that live in crowds, think chiefly of themselves. There is indeed a selfish seeming, where the anchorite liveth alone, But probe his thoughts,--they travel far, dreaming for ever of the world: And there is an apparent generosity, when a man mixeth freely with his fellows; But prove his mind, by day and night, his thoughts are all of self: The world, inciting him to pleasures, or relentlessly provoking him to toil, Is full of anxious rivals, each with a difference of interest; So must he plan and practise for himself, even as his own best friend; And the gay soul of dissipation never had a thought unselfish. The hermit standeth out of strife, abiding in a contemplative calmness; What shall he contemplate,--himself? a meagre theme for musing: He hath cast off follies, and kept aloof from cares; a man of simple wants; God and the soul, these are his excuse, a just excuse, for solitude: But he carried with him to his cell the half-dead feelings of humanity; There were they rested and refreshed; and he yearned once more on men. [Illustration]