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Four Victorian Poets
Who, though so noble, share in the world's toil,
And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!
I will not say that your mild deeps retain
A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain
Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain.
And, though so task'd, keep free from dust and soil!
I will not say that your mild deeps retain
A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain
Who have long'd deeply once, and long'd in vain.
This thought which I suggest he conceived, is in these lines obscure and wandering. It takes a clearer, indeed another, consistency in Morality. Nature there, in her freedom and joy, looks on our agony, and, while we think she censures or despises our strife, does really nothing of the kind, but, on the contrary, is emotionalised by it, set into self-wonder and questioningby it. Did I ever feel, she asks, the eagerness to perfection, to realisation of thought in form, which gives to men that earnest air?
See, on her face a glow is spread,
A strong emotion on her cheek!
"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
A strong emotion on her cheek!
"Ah, child!" she cries, "that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?
"There is no effort on my brow—
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once—but where?
I do not strive, I do not weep;
I rush with the swift spheres and glow
In joy, and when I will, I sleep.
Yet that severe, that earnest air,
I saw, I felt it once—but where?
"I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
I saw it in some other place.
'T was when the heavenly house I trod,
And lay upon the breast of God."
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
I saw it in some other place.
'T was when the heavenly house I trod,
And lay upon the breast of God."
