BOOK IV.

Ellen! " the dead are safe, " I said;
Yet to the unreturning dead
I must again sad utterance give:
My pleasing task will then be done;
Soon, then, my mortal course be run;
And I, too, shall begin to live.
Who shall undo the past day's deed?
It labours for the coming hour;
And if I am but as a weed,
The weed, though dead, is still a power;
Ay, and of Goodness! of all powers
Greatest, the Life that cannot die,
The evergrowing Unity,
Whose death-matur'd and brightest flowers
Will not the tiny soul contemn
That bloom'd its best, and went to them!
The perfect joy, that once was grief,
Will see no sorrow in my leaf.
Freed worms, that blam'd a worm's excess,
Will pardon kindred littleness.
The left-on-earth will cease to blame
Mistaken words, or failing aim;
Nor scorn, perchance, from Shirecliff's side
To gaze, with me, o'er Hallam wide;
Or wander with a child of sin
By shadow-haunted Rivilin;
Or, lov'd of sunbeams! talk with one
Whose soul, by Rother, Sheaf, or Don
Still lingering, wreaths for truth will weave;
And all that spirits tell believe.