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SYMPATHY[1]
Lately, alas! I knew a gentle boy,
Whose features all were cast in Virtue's mould,
As one she had designed for Beauty's toy,
But after manned him for her own stronghold.
On every side he open was as day,
That you might see no lack of strength within;
For walls and ports do only serve alway
For a pretence to feebleness and sin.
- ↑ The explanation of this poem, given on Emerson's authority, but necessarily somewhat conjectural, is that a reference is made, under the character of the 'gentle boy,' to the girl with whom both Henry and John Thoreau were in love.
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