And touched it with a touch of anodyne ;
As being healed, he smiled again, and said,
" Sweetheart, you have not sung to me so long ;
They say frogs croak to pique the nightingales
Into melodic contest ; thus croak I : —
A NIGHT-WATCH.
" Woe is my mother that reared me, for I am a man of strife,
I have not hated my neighbour, and yet he would seek my life.
Prophets that prophesy smooth things, to them shall the smooth things come ;
Better than coal from the altar it is that a man be dumb.
Wake her not up, my beloved ; fan her with breeze of myrrh.
" Happiness is not the one thing a man should essay to gain,
So I have said with the others, when I had but medium pain.
Some of the planets, it may be, have air that is pure and best ;
He who should set out to reach them would need on the way to rest.
