Not so for all; To most men life is but a common thing, The hours a sort of coin to barter with, Whose worth is reckoned by the sum they buy In gold, or power, or pleasure; each short day That brings not these deemed fruitless as dry sand. Their lives are but a blind activity, And death to them is but the end of motion, Grey children who have madly eat and drunk, Won the high seats or filled their chests with gold. And yet for all their years have never seen The picture of their lives, or how life looks To him who hath the deep uneager eye, How sweet and large and beautiful it was, How strange the part they played. Like him who sits Beneath some mighty tree, with half-closed eyes, At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade, Yet never once awakes from his dull dream To mark with curious joy the kingly trunk, The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave it, Even so the most of men; they take the gift, And care not for the giver. Strange indeed Are they, and pitiable beyond measure, Who, thus unmindful of their wretchedness, Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening beggars, Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thing Life is to him who sees, to whom each hour Brings some fresh wonder to be brooded on, Adds some new group or studied history To that wrought sculpture, that our watchful dreams Cast up upon the broad expanse of time, As in a never-finished frieze, not less The little things that most men pass unmarked Than those that shake mankind. Happy is he, Who, as a watcher, stands apart from life, From all life and his own, and thus from all, Each thought, each deed, and each hour's brief event, Draws the full beauty, sucks its meaning dry. For him this life shall be a tranquil joy. He shall be quiet and free. To him shall come No gnawing hunger for the coarser touch, No mad ambition with its fateful grasp; Sorrow itself shall sway him like a dream.