And thus he seemed to hear the song Which swept, of old, the stars along; And to his eyes the earth once more Its fresh and primal beauty wore. Who sought with him, from summer air, And field and wood, a balm for care; And bathed in light of sunset skies His tortured nerves and weary eyes? His fame on all the winds had flown; His words had shaken crypt and throne; Like fire, on camp and court and cell They dropped, and kindled as they fell. Beneath the pomps of state, below The mitred juggler's masque and show, A prophecy, a vague hope, ran His burning thought from man to man. For peace or rest too well he saw The fraud of priests, the wrong of law, And felt how hard, between the two, Their breath of pain the millions drew. A prophet-utterance, strong and wild, The weakness of an unweaned child, A sun-bright hope for human-kind, And self-despair, in him combined. He loathed the false, yet lived not true To half the glorious truths he knew; The doubt, the discord, and the sin, He mourned without, he felt within. Untrod by him the path he showed, Sweet pictures on his easel glowed Of simple faith, and loves of home, And virtue's golden days to come. But weakness, shame, and folly made The foil to all his pen portrayed; Still, where his dreamy splendors shone, The shadow of himself was thrown. Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times, Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs, While still his grosser instinct clings To earth, like other creeping things! So rich in words, in acts so mean; So high, so low; chance-swung between The foulness of the penal pit And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit! Vain, pride of star-lent genius!--vain, Quick fancy and creative brain, Unblest by prayerful sacrifice, Absurdly great, or weakly wise! Midst yearnings for a truer life, Without were fears, within was strife; And still his wayward act denied The perfect good for which he sighed. The love he sent forth void returned; The fame that crowned him scorched and burned, Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,-- A fire-mount in a frozen zone! Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,(9) Seen southward from his sleety mast, About whose brows of changeless frost A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed. Far round the mournful beauty played Of lambent light and purple shade, Lost on the fixed and dumb despair Of frozen earth and sea and air! A man apart, unknown, unloved By those whose wrongs his soul had moved, He bore the ban of Church and State, The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!