While with the savage beasts around They fought at odds, yet underground Their miserable life was sound; Their loves and quarrels Did well th' ideal bases found Of art and morals: 14 One prime distinction, Good and Ill, Was all their notion, all their skill;-- But Unity stands next to Nil;-- Want of analysis Saved them from doubts that wreck the Will With pale paralysis. 15 In vain philosophers dispute 'Is Good or Pleasure our pursuit?'-- The fruit likes man, not man the fruit; The good that likes him, The good man's pleasure 'tis to do 't; That's how it strikes him. 16 Tho' Science hide beneath her feet The point where moral reasonings meet, The vicious circle is complete; There is no lodgement Save Aristotle's own retreat, The just man's judgement. 17 And if thou wert not that just man, Wild Robin, born to crown his plan, We shall not for that matter ban Thy petty treason, Nor closely thy defection scan From highest Reason. 18 Thou might'st have lived like Robin Hood Waylaying Abbots in the wood, Doing whate'er thee-seemèd good, The law defying, And 'mong the people's heroes stood Living and dying: 19 Yet better bow than his thou bendest, And well the poor man thou befriendest, And oftentime an ill amendest; When, if truth touch thee, Sharply the arrow home thou sendest; There's none can match thee. 20 So pity it is thou knew'st the teen Of sad remorse: the Might-have-been Shall not o'ercloud thy merry scene With vain repentance, Nor forfeit from thy spirit keen My friendly sentence. 15 THE PORTRAIT OF A GRANDFATHER With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak, Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays, One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek: It is of him whom I, remembering my young days, Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore, Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze, The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more. O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing, O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore, The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going, How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing, Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak. And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak, In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly, --Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,-- Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly, 'Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!' [1880.]