I

While I reflect on the departed years
River-like lapsed from me, and when I see
Through the far vistas of clear memory
The vigorous green along youth's bank that grew,
Which the impress of mid-age mellowing sears,
Brightening decadence with its fading hue;
And, looking in this bodily temple, when
I feel the vanished hours come not again,
And the stream flowing fainter from its source;
When with a stifled and a vain regret
I mark how Time his signet-seal hath set
On those who deepest feel this solemn life;
Tinging the once dark hair with sober grey,
Like light lines down a failing watercourse:
And when I see the accusing forehead lined
With furrows thought and care have left behind,
And feel my heart is weary of the strife;
And when I watch the star of my high hope
Unreached, afar, and gathering clouds o'ercast
The rays that once I deemed on me would shine:
Verily by the way-side I could sit
Like him the Man above all men divine,
" Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,"
And, feeling for this stern rough life unfit,
Yield to fate adverse, and the strife resign.

II

Yet I look round me, and see breathing men
Happy; content to pass away unheard
From this all unintelligible scene;
Resigned to be as they had never been:
As if to breathe and minister to wants,
Or grasp some petty aim awhile deferred,
Were all for which the yearning bosom pants.
What then am I? upon whose opening mind
One light broke shadowless; upon whose ear
Rang one commandment.
" Thou art stationed here,
No priest of Nature to dream life apart
In barren musings fruitless to thy kind,
But gather truths and speak them from thy heart,
To endure with fortitude and will resigned;
To probe with hope and love the inmost spirit
Of man thy brother, passed into thine own,
Till thy inspiring songs from thee be thrown
Like leaves of Autumn, it may be, ere flown,
Gathered by those deep bosoms that inherit
Musing and passionate thought confessed from thine
Never did poet to his task succumb;
He is a prophet teaching from the shrine
Of heaven-inspiring poesy; his song
Drawn from the past, foreshadowing things to come.
Malevolent spleen and hate in vain assail
Him unresisting; discords heard among
Vibrating chords that o'er their tones prevail,
Melted to echoes that the strain prolong.