REUBEN
Is thro’ their tender trivial influence
Redeem’d, and still has charm. But when, betwixt
Day and day sunless, foggy night on night
Brings the slight frost unfailing, and the pinch’d
Earthnut and harebells, and wan scabious
Fade, and are not succeeded: then indeed
Hard skies beneath, and o’er a naked land,
A starveling and a settled gloom presides.
And so on Reuben Sarah’s influence fell.
Sheath’d by no shame and edged with judgment cold,
That steely scrutiny could wound, and though,
Untemper’d in the fires of sympathy,
Oft it must glance aside and leave him still
Unsearch’d, unviolated: none the less
Its neighbourhood was a perpetual daunt.
It chill’d his spirit, his small innocences
Rebuk’d, penn’d in and paralysed his powers,
And from a life of happiness bereft
Filch’d comfort also. Little heeded he.
What is the loss of Less when All is gone?
Yet drearier is the bleak November down
For the dead stalks of its once-colour’d flowers.
Smooth days no more, and tender peaceful nights;
Vague gentle dalliance with the days long past,
And calm unreckoning with futurity,
No more. Old hardship seem’d a happy dream,
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