Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/450

 The foolish nurse their hearts within the screen
Of this familiar world, where all we do
Or have is old, for there is nothing new:
 Yet elder far that world we have not seen;
 God's Presence antedates what else hath been:
Many the foolish seem, the wise seem few.
Oh foolishest fond folly of a heart
 Divided, neither here nor there at rest!
  That hankers after Heaven, but clings to earth;
  That neither here nor there knows thorough mirth,
Half-choosing, wholly missing, the good part:—
 Oh fool among the foolish, in thy quest.

25.

When we consider what this life we lead
 Is not, and is: how full of toil and pain,
 How blank of rest and of substantial gain,
Beset by hunger earth can never feed,
And propping half our hearts upon a reed;
 We cease to mourn lost treasures, mourned in vain,
 Lost treasures we are fain and yet not fain
To fetch back for a solace of our need.
For who that feel this burden and this strain,
 This wide vacuity of hope and heart,
Would bring their cherished well-beloved again:
 To bleed with them and wince beneath the smart,
To have with stinted bliss such lavish bane,
 To hold in lieu of all so poor a part?