Religion, duty, books, work, friends,-- 'Tis good advice, but there it ends. I'm sick for what these have not got. Send no more books: they help me not; I do my work: the void's there still Which carefullest duty cannot fill. What though the inaugural hour of right Comes ever with a keen delight? Little relieves the labour's heat; Disgust oft crowns it when complete; And life, in fact, is not less dull For being very dutiful. 'The stately homes of England,' lo, 'How beautiful they stand!' They owe How much to nameless things like me Their beauty of security! But who can long a low toil mend By looking to a lofty end? And let me, since 'tis truth, confess The void's not fill'd by godliness. God is a tower without a stair, And His perfection, love's despair. 'Tis He shall judge me when I die; He suckles with the hissing fly The spider; gazes calmly down. Whilst rapine grips the helpless town. His vast love holds all this and more. In consternation I adore. Nor can I ease this aching gulf With friends, the pictures of myself. Then marvel not that I recur From each and all of these to her. For more of heaven than her have I No sensitive capacity. Had I but her, ah, what the gain Of owning aught but that domain! Nay, heaven's extent, however much, Cannot be more than many such; And, she being mine, should God to me Say 'Lo! my Child, I give to thee 'All heaven besides,' what could I then, But, as a child, to Him complain That whereas my dear Father gave A little space for me to have In His great garden, now, o'erblest, I've that, indeed, but all the rest, Which, somehow, makes it seem I've got All but my only cared-for plot. Enough was that for my weak hand To tend, my heart to understand. Oh, the sick fact, 'twixt her and me There's naught, and half a world of sea. IX. FROM FREDERICK.