The courses of our lives, that side by side
Ran for some little while, are sundered now;
We treat not now, as once, day after day,
In pleasant intercourse to 'change our thoughts:
Ye I remember often all that time,
And all the thoughts that filled it — for just then
To were as merchants seeking goodly pearls,
Seeking one pearl of price; and when we read
In Looks of some, or met on life's highway,
Who had returned as from a fruitless quest,
Bringing these tidings only, that all lands
They had gone through, had searched the farthest coasts,
Wherever Fame reported that such pearl
Was to be won, but still had nothing found,
And now believed not there was aught to find,
On hearts would die within us, loath to leave
Their hope, which yet grew weaker day by day,
That somewhere was a key which should unlock
The many chambers of this human life,
A new harmoniously to reconcile
All the perplexed appearances of things,
A treasure which should make the finder rich
For ever: for slight profit then to us,
And little comfort might we draw from things
Wherein some found, or thought at least they found,
The immortal longings of their spirits slaked,
And all life's mystery lightened. What at best
The beautiful creations of man's art,
If resting not on some diviner ground
Than man's own mind that formed them — at the best
What but the singing of a mournful dirge,
What but the scattering flowers upon the grave
Of man's abandoned hopes and buried joys?
Oh, miserable comfort! Loss is loss,
And death is death; and after all is done —
After the flowers are scattered on the tomb,
After the singing of the sweetest dirge —
The mourner, with his heart uncomforted,
Returning to his solitary home,
Thinks with himself, if any one had aught
Of stronger consolation, he should speak;
If not, 'twere best for ever to hold peace,
And not to mock him with vain words like these.
Such, and no more — to us contemplating
The life of man — such, and no truer, seemed
The alleviations to be won from these —
Poor, withering garlands flung upon a grave,
The mournful beauty of a couchant Sphinx,
Watching by some half-buried pyramid,
Or fallen column in the wilderness!

And Nature's self, our foster-mother dear,
What could she do for us? whaThelp impart?
Or when we felt that we were orphans here,
Or when our orphan hearts within us mourned,
And fled unto her bosom, there to find
Pity and love, there were no beatings there,
There were no pulses in her cold, cold heart;
She had no happy family of love,
In which to adopt us. Beauty without love,
How should it cherish or make less forlorn
The forlorn heart of man? what comfort yield?
Yea, rather must it be a tearful thing,
And such we felt it; such it was to us,
Who gazed upon the incense breathing flowers,
Trees and rejoicing rivers — sun and stars,
Keeping their courses in untroubled joy,
By sin unstained, by longings undisturbed,
While we, the first-fruits of creation — we
For whose dear sake all other things were made —
Were as we were: but they appeared to us
Like the hired servants whom the Prodigal
Bethought him of, as satisfied with bread;
While we, the children of our Father's house,
Were perishing with hunger far away
What longing had we then to be as these,
To be as flowers or trees, as rocks or stones!
Glad might we have relinquished and put by
The burden of our immortality,
And all the drear prerogatives of man.

Or sometimes finding little nearer home,
That we should love to dwell with our own hearts,
We looked abroad, and spake of some bright dawn
Of happiness and freedom, peace and love,
Day long desired, and now about to break
On all the nations — yet the while we felt
That we were speaking false and hollow words —
For how should man, despairing of himself,
Have hope for others? — where no centre is —
Centre established sure-of life and joy —
What is it but an idle thing to draw
The widest circle of imagined good
At distance round us? — where 'tis ill with each,
How vain to hope it should be well with all!

But now, though not to outward change we look
For the fulfilling of that glorious hope,
Have we renounced that hope — ? or is it grown
A less substantial vision, because now
No fabled world, imagined isles beyond
The limitary ocean, such as never
Have been but in the longing of man's heart,
Not these now occupy our hearts and hopes;
But Eden and the New Jerusalem,
The garden and the city of our God,
The things which have been and shall be again,
Fill up the prospect upon either side,
Before us and behind? or have we left
Our love for Nature, now to love her less,
Since we have learned that all we so admire
Is yet but as her soiled and weekday dress,
And nothing to the glory she shall wear,
When for the coming sabbath of the world
She shall put on her festival attire —
Or closed our hearts to what of beautiful
Mat by strong spell and earnest toil has won
To take intelligible forms of art,
Now that all these are recognised to be
Desires and yearnings, feeling after him
And by him only to be satisfied,
Who is himself the eternal Loveliness?

Has it been so with us, that men should say,
That they should say with reason, we have now
Narrowed our hearts, forsaken our old joy
In Nature, or renounced the glorious hope
That once we cherished for the race of man?
That hope, that joy, that longing, still are ours,
And shall continue with us to the end,
The better not to be. True is it, we walk
Under the shadow of such mysteries,
That how should they not darken us sometimes?
And how in such a mournful world as this,
Should Love be other than a sorrowing thing —
A call to grieve? for though its golden key
Sets open to us a new world of joys,
Yet has it griefs and sorrows of its own,
Making things grievous that we once could bear
To look at with a careless, tearless eye.