His icicle upon the frozen bough
Stern winter hangs, where hung the leaf ere now:
In soft diffusion doth the morning creep
Along the clouded heaven from mound to mound,
So faint and wan, the woods are still asleep,
And pallid shadows scarcely mark the ground.

Then comes the thought, Alas that summer dies;
Alas that youth should melancholy grow
In waning hours, and lose the alchemies
That make its thickest clouds with gold to glow!

But what hast thou to do,
Whose soul is strong, with time? What cause hast thou
To watch the flitting years leave bare the bough
Of life's fair tree, as yonder bough is left
Unhonoured and bereft
To wave unheeded in the ashen sky:
Stern spirit, thou canst feel
Eternal pinions grow with nerves of steel
To wing thee on thy flight;
And eyes of vision true
And resolutely bright
To aid thee in the track thou must pursue
With instinct sure and expectation high.

So rather in the dubious years which part
Manhood from youth, reflects the very heart
How small the loss that perished with the time
That was its prime
What has been lost save hopes and fears
That shook tumultuary spears
Beside the desolate fount of tears?
What has been lost save beating ears
That sought for praise in all the tides of air,
And thrust upon the trembling heart despair,
Because they gathered coldness, scoff, and scorn;
Save sorrow desperately forlorn:
What, save vain thoughts that strove in trembling doubt
To wander all the universe about,
The woods, the fields; and in an airy ring
To compass everything?
But now 'tis sweet to know that whatsoe'er
The lot may be the cold stars bid thee share,
One ember plucked from dying youth
Shall ever burn, and that is—Noble Truth.
Unto the soul that upward still hath striven
Shall Noble Truth reveal herself from heaven:
This shall survive and be a living shoot
From which the dead earth falls, and glorious fruit
Shall spring from this: and still thou mayst behold
How divine substance lieth underneath
The many forms of life, the dust of death:
And Poetry, that wondrous thing, doth mould
Itself around the meanest thing that is;
Clinging, like music in an echoing cave,
Round what were dismal else; with equal kiss
Touching the gilded tyrant and his slave.