He may, if he but listen well, Through twilight and the silence here, Be told what there are none may tell To vanity's impatient ear; And he may never dare again Say what awaits him, or be sure What sunlit labyrinth of pain He may not enter and endure. Who knows to-day from yesterday May learn to count no thing too strange: Love builds of what Time takes away, Till Death itself is less than Change. Who sees enough in his duress May go as far as dreams have gone; Who sees a little may do less Than many who are blind have done; Who sees unchastened here the soul Triumphant has no other sight Than has a child who sees the whole World radiant with his own delight. Far journeys and hard wandering Await him in whose crude surmise Peace, like a mask, hides everything That is and has been from his eyes; And all his wisdom is unfound, Or like a web that error weaves On airy looms that have a sound No louder now than falling leaves. Old King Cole In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole A wise old age anticipate, Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, No Khan's extravagant estate. No crown annoyed his honest head, No fiddlers three were called or needed; For two disastrous heirs instead Made music more than ever three did. Bereft of her with whom his life Was harmony without a flaw, He took no other for a wife, Nor sighed for any that he saw; And if he doubted his two sons, And heirs, Alexis and Evander, He might have been as doubtful once Of Robert Burns and Alexander. Alexis, in his early youth, Began to steal--from old and young. Likewise Evander, and the truth Was like a bad taste on his tongue. Born thieves and liars, their affair Seemed only to be tarred with evil-- The most insufferable pair Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. The world went on, their fame went on, And they went on--from bad to worse; Till, goaded hot with nothing done, And each accoutred with a curse, The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, And fours, and sevens, and elevens, Pronounced unalterable views Of doings that were not of heaven's. And having learned again whereby Their baleful zeal had come about, King Cole met many a wrathful eye So kindly that its wrath went out-- Or partly out. Say what they would, He seemed the more to court their candor; But never told what kind of good Was in Alexis and Evander. And Old King Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's assurance in it; And once a man was there all night, Expecting something every minute.