Burdening his weary ghost: 150 Ever walking by his side He must see his angel guide, Who at intervals doth turn Looks on him so sadly stern, With such ever-new surprise Of hushed anguish in her eyes, That it seems the light of day From around him shrinks away, Or drops blunted from the wall Built around him by his fall. 160 Then the mountains, whose white peaks Catch the morning's earliest streaks, He must see, where prophets sit, Turning east their faces lit, Whence, with footsteps beautiful, To the earth, yet dim and dull, They the gladsome tidings bring Of the sunlight's hastening: Never can these hills of bliss 169 Be o'erclimbed by feet like his! But enough! Oh, do not dare From the next the veil to tear, Woven of station, trade, or dress, More obscene than nakedness, Wherewith plausible culture drapes Fallen Nature's myriad shapes! Let us rather love to mark How the unextingnished spark Still gleams through the thin disguise 179 Of our customs, pomps, and lies, And, not seldom blown to flame, Vindicates its ancient claim. STUDIES FOR TWO HEADS I Some sort of heart I know is hers,-- I chanced to feel her pulse one night; A brain she has that never errs, And yet is never nobly right; It does not leap to great results, But, in some corner out of sight Suspects a spot of latent blight, And, o'er the impatient infinite, She hargains, haggles, and consults. Her eye,--it seems a chemic test And drops upon you like an acid; 11 It bites you with unconscious zest, So clear and bright, so coldly placid; It holds you quietly aloof, It holds,--and yet it does not win you; It merely puts you to the proof And sorts what qualities are in you: It smiles, but never brings you nearer, It lights,--her nature draws not nigh; 'Tis but that yours is growing clearer 20 To her assays;--yes, try and try, You'll get no deeper than her eye. There, you are classified: she's gone Far, far away into herself; Each with its Latin label on, Your poor components, one by one, Are laid upon their proper shelf In her compact and ordered mind, And what of you is left behind Is no more to her than the wind; In that clear brain, which, day and night, 31 No movement of the heart e'er jostles, Her friends are ranged on left and right,-- Here, silex, hornblende, sienite; There, animal remains and fossils. And yet, O subtile analyst, That canst each property detect Of mood or grain, that canst untwist Each tangled skein of intellect, And with thy scalpel eyes lay bare 40 Each mental nerve more fine than air,-- O brain exact, that in thy scales Canst weigh the sun and never err, For once thy patient science fails, One problem still defies thy art;-- Thou never canst compute for her The distance and diameter Of any simple human heart. II