I. YEARS AFTER.

Our world has spun ten circles round the light

Since here she vanished. In my helpless gaze,

To mark the spot, was fixed this carven stone,

Raw, garish, stolidly obtrusive then,

Now harmonising kindly with the rest.

A spray of centipedal ivy creeps

From death to birth, and reaches to her name;

With kisslike touch its tender leaflets feel

The letter's edge,— I scarce can think it chance.

Now scene by scene that strange old long-ago,

Crowding my opened memory, presents

Tumultuous, as in dreams, some dreadful state

Wherein I knew not falsehood from the truth;

Where hope ascending struck the star of Love,

Then fell down headlong grovelling in despair;

But rose at length and walked the beaten way.

So dim and far these things; so worn and changed,

I scarcely feel that I am he who sought

And won her love. And is it true indeed,

That I absorbed in tenderest intercourse

Of trustful glance, and trustful clasping hands,

With her went wandering by the river side;

While over head melodious branches sang,

Scattering the gold of sunset-dazzled flowers

Breathing their perfumed sweetness from our path,

That flickering went to where in purple woods

The rugged church tower burned a wall of fire!

Did I, when silence awed the winter woods,

And giant shadows trenched the frosty ground

From bole and limb whose vault held in the night,

Love to behold the full-grown magic moon

Cast splendour glittering on the silver rime?

Yes; mid the notes and emerald flush of spring,

With swollen brooks exulting through the fields,

And rainy wind that in an ocean-roar

Bore down the forest tops the livelong day,

Through straggling gleams, through random wafts of shade,

Rejoicingly I trod the glistening paths.

Yes, I it was, in dreamy golden haze,

Beheld poor men hard toiling all the hours,

And thought them happier than the birds that sang,

That sang and trilled in gurgles of delight.

Dallying I loitered in the golden time

Long after the loved nightingale had ceased

To pour his passionate impulse over plains

Of shivering corn, now ripened into wealth;

When sunset-coloured fruit in orchard crofts

Hung slowly mellowing under azure noons;

And, hushed in darkened leaves, the dreaming air

Swelled gently to a whispering sound, and died.

With joy I wandered on from knoll to knoll

And lost in marvel, drank the lisping winds,

The fairy winds that lisped me all was good.

Nor marked I when the clogged horizon flew

In dusky vapour crowding up the skies;

But woke anon when deathlike pallor thrown

From wrathful drift laid the whole land in gloom;

When war, enormous war, broke through the heavens,

In sheets and streaking fire and thunderous clap,

With shock on shock, that crushed the ripened corn,

And swept the piled up midsummer to ruin.

That wrenched great timbers of a thousand years,

Shaking the strong foundations of the land.

And when at last the terrible tempest fell,

Wide heaven was emptied of the sun and stars,

And void of more than all their light to me.

Like fretted me to hollow weariness

When my sweet Dove of Paradise went off,

Ascending, glory-guarded, into heaven.

Then feeding on the past, and fondling death,

I grew in livid horror: soon had grown,

By foul self cankered, to a charnel ghoule,

Had not Almighty God, gracious in love,

Permitted her own presence once again,

Mysterious as a vision, yet once more

To come a shining warning and reveal

Athwart my path unfathomable gulfs,

And kindle hope wherewith I still might gain

The hills that shine for ever to the blessed.

Much striving has been mine since those events

Ruled the pulsation of my daily life:

And now they are a vulgar chronicle,

And gossiped over by the rudest tongues.

A haunting song of old felicities

Lured me, scarce consciously, down here to muse

Upon my shattered dreams; safe from the roar

Of interests in our grim metropolis,

The beating heart of England and the world.

Not seen by me, since on that wondrous night

Her consolation came into my soul;

Yet here again I stand beside her tomb —

And here I muse, more wise and not so sad.

Hers was a gracious and a gentle house!

Rich in obliging nice observances

And famed ancestral hospitality.

A cool repose lay grateful through the place;

And pleasant duties promptly, truly done,

And every service moved by hidden springs

Sped with intelligence, went smoothly round.

In wending home, he filled her lap with flowers;

And she, ere yet the house was reached, unloosed

His guarding hand, ran forward, glinted through

The porch, and with a joyous outcry lit

The room, where sat in converse or at books

Her parents: then, as she an hour before

Had seen those mirrored marvels of the lake

All trembling merge to one confused turmoil

Of beauty broken into shattered light,

When o'er its surface swept the hungry fowls,

So blurred with shifting catches, so involved

Through eagerness, her babbled narrative

To the kind mother, who, embracing her,

Felt satisfied her child had been well pleased.

Then the great father, he would lightly lift

To knee his darling girl; with fingers cup

The tiny chin, and kiss the rosebud mouth;

And gently his large tawny hand would stroke

That woven sunshine glowing down her back,

Which changed to deepest auburn glossed with gold,

Calling her tricksy names. But, when at length

Appeared the calm inevitable nurse,

He laughed; and she in screaming laughter flew

By stalwart arm thrust high above his head

Immeshed in wild flowers emptied from her lap,

Which shaking off, he brought the screamer down,

And gaily swung her into willing arms.

She talked these childhood memories while we strolled

Among the scenes which bred them; for she loved

To dwell on things which some regard as slight:

But in her presence, told by her own self,

With clear apt words and satisfying voice;

The violet poise of her most graceful head

Flung forth in lighted gesture to reveal

The very fact; her hovering white hand

Almost in music warbling with her words,

And bounding all the tenderest care to please;—

Now, one by one, these aits of memory glow

In hallowed splendour, and have made less dark

A life I feel not altogether vain.

So common was her mother's lot, that who

Can say “Like is not mine” is blessed indeed:

For they are countless that on shades have thrown

Their passion had been chilled for evermore!

Scarce at her bloom, and years before she met

The destined man her husband, girl-like she

Adored a youth with sparkling genius graced,

Who bound on great adventure spread all sail;

But needed ballast, working common sense,

And meeting storms, he foundered and was lost.

For long his fate dragged at her heart; it drained

Her strength; it left her vague and desolate:

Her life became as chill uneasy dreams

Wherefrom we cannot break. Yet be it said,

Lowly and truly gentle were her ways;

She was a tender and obedient wife,

And in a sweet and plaintive graciousness

Her every act performed. I trust her mind,

Subdued by constant sadness unavowed,

Grew clear of shadows, and at last could dwell

Upon the future, that in one straight path

Reached Justice throned in everlasting light,

And learned to feel that chastisement is love.

Somewhat through lethargy; and partly sense

Of duty in forgetfulness of grief;

With pleadings due to her own kindliness,

She came to take another as her lord;

Then came to yield herself in all and wed

Her husband's own indomitable will:

He having gained her, cherished her, and loved

Her mild compliance with the strength of life.

He was a man of thews and goodly frame

Made swart in battle. Under Indian suns

Our foes had often there been taught to know

That weight of arm, resistless when he closed

Charging upon them with his sword and eye.

But when his father died, he left the East

For England; here to rule his own estate,

And reign among the county gentlemen,

Who duly came with pride to own him chief.

He had the kingly look of born command,

An eagle set of eye and curve of neck;

A cutting insight backed by solid sense;

Vast knowledge, and the facile use of it,

To break obstruction, or direct the force

Of will resolved to compass every end.

Withal a broad and generous natured man

Who ever kindly turned the doubtful scale

Against himself: no tenant ever mourned

The day when the new master came to rule;

Nor were old village gossips heard lament

The good times fled with their departed lord.

Culture went hand in hand with strength in him:

Broad-versed was he in science; rock and soil,

Plant, shell, bird, beast, to complex form of man,

With something of the stars. Historic works

He mostly read; and ofttimes dug for trace

Of steps long past in archaeology.

He loved the singers of our native land

Who take our souls up to the worth of life;

And those deep thinkers whose conclusions show

The secret principles that work the world.

He prized laborious Hallam; but declared

Carlyle half mad; “A coil of restive thoughts,

That touch on nothing sound or practical,

Told in outrageous jargon, cumbersome

As any Laplander's costume!” Which I

In ruffled pride would always straight oppose,

“Sound or unsound, his word is daylight truth,

That breeding heroes once was England's boast,

And now we brag of making millionaires.

Your‘ practical’ means shortest cut to wealth:

But far too frequently purse robs the heart;

One growing heavy drains the other dry.

His style, poetically pregnant, oft

By note of admiration merely, hints

More than crammed Pro Con of your favourite's page.”

At this he shouts a scornful roaring laugh,

The table shaking, and the vessels chinked

As fell his weighty arm: with massive gaze

In hurly-burly sort he bantered me:

“Young bubble-dreamer, plotting stanza rhymes,

What can you know of laws: what know of plans

Which bound these varied interests of ours,

Through crossing currents, fixed for certain ends,

To frame this state we call society,

The full outcome of immemorial time?

Know, here on earth wealth must not be despised,

For we are as we are. While men subsist

By interchanging goods and service, gold

Will be the grease that smooths the whole machine.

I grant a few, the greatest, live content

To give forth what has ripened in their minds;

But greed alone brings each result to grow

And spread its uses through the mass. Beside

Where honour, reason, or instinctive life,

Quite fails, there gold will prick the sluggard loon.

It wakes the drowsy lounger of the East,

Who lolls in sunshine idle as a gourd,

To toil like Irish hodmen. Roused, he hears

Coin ringing lively music; falls to work,

And digs, and hews, and grinds: he sees, not far,

Himself, a chief of horsemen richly clad,

Armed with long spears and silver-halted blades,

Seizing pachalic power by a swift blow.

But labour, having brought him gold, brings fears.

The weight of wealth has made his footfall staid;

He longs for order, settled government,

And stands, a stern upholder, by the law.

“I know you flout this‘ gold materialism,’

For what you call the‘ gold of evening skies:’

But let me tell you, boy, for you‘ tis well

My lands are broad and bankers true, or else

Your maiden, she, poor girl, I often think,

Would want a crust to eat and shoes to wear.”

Thus he, in what I call his‘ copper-gilt,’

For which I paid him tinsel; “She want shoes!

Her feet will press the flowers of paradise,

And, being angel, she will need no food.”

“Eugh! Get your tackle, let us catch some trout.”

She never stayed a long while from her home,

But lived a quiet life; contentedly

Taking the continent and many things

On trust; feeling our landscapes satisfied

Her love for scenes. When from a visit she

Returned, no lovelier picture ever blessed

My sight than when she swam into his arms,

And stood in beauty, frail, against his strength

Supporting her, and kissed his lips and cheeks

And brow. He then, as if his daughter yet

Were but a child, would press the upturned head

Between his hands, where peered the innocent face

Rosy with smile and blush, like a sweet flower

Bursting its tawny sheath: whereon he gazed

A father's gaze immeasurably kind;

And long, in tenderness akin to pity,

There held her, who was beautiful and good.

One eve full late in balmy summer time

We feared the wind breathing of night had chilled

Her tranquil mother, as we paced a walk

Leading espalier-trellised to the house;

She ever heedful parted silently,

And flushed with sunset vanished from our gaze;

But we beheld her soon dawn from the porch

In haste bringing her mother's mantle. When,

As comes the tide-wave up an easy beach,

Played with a billowy sound and look of foam

The thousand folds round her advancing feet,

Her shape divine looking as great as ocean's

Light beyond: yet no sea bird that gleams

From the blue-arched illimitable heaven

Could glide with lightness airier than she

To hang the garment round her mother's neck;

And then strike, womanlike, the folds in place;

Kissing the thankful lips, and deftly fix

The fastening at her throat. While pondering thus

And patching these rich fragments, strange it seems

What little things obtrude on my regard!

I now remember every sculptured group,

And painted scene, and portrait, figured vase,

Each print unique, and gem, we once beheld

When visiting a mansion near, enriched

By generations of collected Art:

The masters, by whose hands the works were wrought,

Long mouldered into dust. Ah, well I know

Why some have burned their symbols in my brain

And rise before me now!

Stone-bound, Narcissus

Droops melting in himself; and Echo by,

In shrunk despair, hangs envying what he wastes.

Through smouldering morning mists a glorious sun

The mountain-shoulder burns; above, transmutes

The zenith cloudlets into airy gold;

And deep down, seen through pure crystalline blue,

Glimmer the village, lake, and mountain range.

Superb at ease a Lady stands and smiles

Sweet welcome to the world: though centuries

Have lapsed since she approved her painter's work,

Her smile has such sincerity, all feel

They must have known her some time in their lives.

Here bossed on silver vase, a marriage train

Moves round to music: lookers-on cast flowers

Before the timid bending bride: meanwhile,

Stalwart and proud, her bridegroom smiles abroad

As at a dazzling sun: the pipers blow,

The harpers twang, the cymbals clash, youths sing;

Six maidens walk behind to hold her veil,

One pair are sad, the next look vain, and two

Prettily whisper secrets to themselves.

Here from old paper stands, and looks of men

The manliest, and king of English kings,

The lion Cromwell, in his dress of war:

Beneath him coils a monster welling blood,

Whose severed heads stretch round in scattered gleam

Of mitre jewelled, coronet and crown.

Sharp cut on gem, set in a thick gold ring,

The size and roundness of a lady's nail,

Love bleeding on the dart himself doth point;

Who thus had died, had not with tenderest touch

Immortal Psyche held the anguished heart

Fast to her own, and purified the pain,

And fanned him with her wings.

And now, as then,

Along those hushed rich corridors we moved,

Poring each masterpiece we favoured most,

And would no longer stay, but felt some chance

Must serve us for the rest: musing, I pass

From scene to scene of My Dear Lady's life,

And leave my other memories undisturbed.

Beneath this airy sapphire's brooding rest,

Its shadows overcast me with a chill

Like coming storm, that black calamity

Which struck and took our Darling from their charge

And mine. Grief stupefied us all. At once

The childless mother lost her wavering strength,

And lay prostrated; never tasting life

On earth again! Beside her husband sat

And watched her fading; saw the last poor smile

Wane from her features; till the closing eyes

Lit into tearful rapture; when he knew

Love's immortality to her revealed.

With both her own she mutely clasped his hand,

And held it in most gentle pressures fixed:

But when the tender grasp relaxed and fell,

The world closed round him to a stony blank.

And now was stricken down the mighty man;

As the ripe harvest levelled by a storm

At morningtide; which, ere sun warmth anew

Can flatter into strength, a second storm

O'erwhelms and scattereth to waste at even.

When that torpidity which follows pain

Through strangeness passed to natural regard

For daily wants; his vacant home he loathed:

His spacious garden grounds; his lake; his woods;

The breezy air; the overhanging heaven,

He loathed: he loathed them all. When spring aroused

The amorous songsters of the copse and field

To seasonable joy, their music mocked

His sadness with its echoes, babbling tales

Of what had been: and he, in bitterness,

Resolved to quit a place where every turn

Stood like a foe, whose settled leering eye

In silence gloared with hope to mark his fall;

He left our country. Far, in Eastern climes,

His nation serving well, he fought and died:

And never had a nobler man upheld

The majesty of England's worth and name.

Long toil-devoted years have gloomed and shone

Since these events closed up my doors of life.

Partly from choice, and part necessity,

With constancy have I sustained and urged

The work it was my duty to advance.

For, when my vision cleared again, I looked

And saw how mean a thing was man, who used

The produce of his fellows’ energies

And gave back nothing.

Then my spirit saw

This Island race two thousand years ago

In simple savagery, controlled by priests

More fell and bloody than the wolves that howled

At midnight round their monstrous altar-stones,

Scenting the sacrificial human blood.

Saw girt with legions lynx-eyed Caesar come

To taste of Briton's valour. When appeared

Legions succeeding legions, and the swarms

Marshalled by skilful discipline had fallen

To tributaries of all-conquering Rome.

Saw when Rome's grip, through fierce luxurious guilt,

Could hold no longer; and with tattered plume

Her eagles left her slaves to stem or tide

The hungry Pict incursions as they could.

Next when a burly genial race here raised

The White Horse Standard: men who wrought the soil

Till yellow corn, responsive, sunned the plains.

When, lured by booty, Ravens from the North

Bent hitherward: stiffly the contest tugged

Long years; till both the wearied champions joined

Their hands, as common home to share the Isle.

With peace the land grew fat; and wholesome bonds

Of nobles to their kings, and serfs to them,

Fell slackened or distorted to misrule;

When Norman William, hard as rocks and fierce

As fire, with charge of mailed horse and showers

Of steel, won England. Her rough sons he drilled

Grimly: by stern command and strength of sword

He forced obedience where he fixed a law.

For ages long against men's stubborn minds,

With give and take, the bold Plantagenets

Kept up the drill. At length the race, now grown

By constant wrestle into thews of power,

Moved calm with strength beneath the Tudor's sway.

And then a Northern Stuart wore their crown,

Whose son, unmindful he was over men

Truth-lovers, lied to them and lost his head;

For Puritans held no respect for lies.

Next flared Charles Satyr's saturnalia

Of Lely Nymphs, who panting sang “More gold;

We yield our beauties freely; gold, more gold.”

Hapless explosions, folly, frenzied plots;

Till well coerced by Lowland William's craft.

Then plans that led to nought, or worse, enforced

By Marlborough's cannon thundering over-seas.

Then through the Guelphic line; our race now grows

To that great power which is to sway the world.

Down from those human shambles, wolf-belapt,

To when, in pardonably grand excess

Of pity, through our people's will was bought

Free indolence for Isles of Western slaves:

And now, when thousands blandly would deny

The proven murderer his rope, the thief

Due chastisement; and when a General

May blunder troops to death, yea, and receive

His Senate's vote of thanks and all made smooth;

And when, as much from universal trust

In other states’ goodwill as from the pinch

Of blinking parsimony, we our fleets

Let rot, and regiments shrink to skeletons.—

From those fell rights to such urbanity

The march indeed is long; tho’ kindly freaks

May sometimes clamour Justice from her throne;

Yet gentleness is still a noble gain,

And we will trust such freaks are nobly meant.

To touch the power we hold, what work has been

Of vigorous brawn, and keen contriving brains!

Stout men with mighty battle in their limbs;

Thinkers, whose cunning struck beyond the strength

Of hosts; priests sworn to God, whose daily lives

Preached gospel purity and kindliness;

Wise chroniclers, whose patience garnered facts

For present want and food for coming time;

And dames who made their homes a paradise,

And kept their husbands great;— have greatly given

The light and choicest substance of their lives

For generations mingling each with each,

Wave multitudinously urging wave,

Toward the one great broadening flow of things,

Then passed into the gloom that swallows all.

Could I dwell here in our proud Island Home,

Preserved by countless victories; made strong

By kings and kingly councillors; enriched

By artisans, whose skill surpassed all men's;

And by such wondrous song immortalised

It glorifies mankind: could I dwell here;

Here feed on this accumulated wealth,

Like senseless swine on acorns of the wood,

And own no wish to render thanks in kind?

Surely there could be found some waste wild flower

To yield one honey-drop that I might drain

To swell the general hive!

At last resolved

Out to its utmost spray my force should strive,

And bring to fruit its yet unopened buds,

I, craving gracious aid of Heaven, straightway

Began the work which shall be mine till death.

If it be granted me that I disroot

Some evil weeds; or plant a seed, which time

Shall nourish to a tree of pleasant shade,

To wearied limbs a boon, and fair to view;

I then shall know the Hand that struck me down

Has been my guide into the paths of truth.

And She, my lost adored One, where is She?

Where has She been throughout these dragging years

Of labour?

She has been my light of life!

The lustrous dawn and radiance of the day

At noon: and She has burned the colours in

To richer depth across the sun at setting:

And my tired lids She closes: then, in dreams,

Descends a shaft of glory barred with stairs

And leads my spirit up where I behold

My dear ones lost. And thus through sleep, not death,

Remote from earthly cares and vexing jars,

I taste the stillness of the life to come.

What time his scythe in misty summer morns

With cheery ring the mower whets; and kine

Move slowly, breathing sweetness, toward the pail

Their milking-maid is jingling, as she calls

“Hi Strawberry and Blossom, hither Cows;”

While slung against the upland with his team

The ploughman dimly like a phantom glides:

What time that noisy spot of life, the lark,

Climbs, shrill with ecstasy, the trembling air;

And “Cuckoo, Cuckoo,” baffling whence it comes,

Shouts the blithe egotist who cries himself;

And every hedge and coppice sings: What time

The lover, restless, through his waking dream,

Nigh wins the hoped-for great unknown delight,

Which never comes to flower, maybe; elsewhere,

The worshipped Maid, a folded rose o'er-rosed

By rosy dawn, asleep lies breathing smiles:

Then ofttime through the emptied London streets,

When every house is closed and spectral still,

And, save the sparrow chirping from the tower

Where tolls the passing time, all sounds are hushed;

Then walk I pondering on the ways of fate,

And file the past before me in review,

Counting my losses and my treasured gains,

And feel I lost a glory such as man

Can never know but once: but how there sprung

From out the chastening wear of grief, a scope

Of sobered interest bent on vaster ends

Than hitherto were mine; and sympathy

For struggling souls, that each held dear within

A sacred meaning, known or unrevealed:—

And these, in their complexities and far

Relations with the sum of general power

Which is the living world, now are my gain;

And grant my spirit from this widened truth

A glimpse of that high duty claimed of all.

How wildly flares the West about the sun,

Now fallen low! And as one, nameless, sails,

Lost deep in witching reverie, along

A silent river; passing villages

Busy with toil; flowered banks and shadowy coves,

And cattle browsing peaceful in the meads;

Who only wakes to consciousness, when full

A burst of sunshine from the sinking orb

Smiting the flood first strikes his dazzled sight;—

So to the present hour am I recalled

By yon red sun-light flaming up the spire,

And vane that sparkles in the warm blue heaven

And that too-well-remembered tolling bell.

Now on the broad mysterious ocean leans

The sailor o'er his vessel's side, and feels

The buzzing joys of home; wondering if fate

Will bear him on to end his being there.

Now pleased the housewife down the path descries

Her husband's footsteps hitherward; his meal

Prepared, the children each made tidy; she

With smiling comfort means to soothe her man,

By labour wearied, through the evening hours.

They whirl their life web, humming like a wheel,

These airy insects. Birds have ceased to sing,

But twitter faintly, settling to their rest;

And not a rook's caw rends the placid air.

I must begone; but ere I go, will kneel

To kiss this ivy — modest earthly type,

That would with constant verdure grace her name,

As I enshroud her memory with my love!

For She has been the blessing that has nerved

My strength in failing hours of blackest night,

When doubts oppress and fears distract; and when

Gigantic Evil's hoofs are crushing good,

And pity burns in terror; while, appalled,

Blanched Justice shrinks aloof; and not a voice,

The smallest, dares uplift itself against

The dripping blood-red horror which pollutes

With death and danger, heaven and earth and sea;

When men's belief grows wild, seeing alone

The dreadful black abominable sin,

Forgetful that the light still shines beyond;

And doubting last the very truth of God,

They hate their fellow creatures and themselves;

Groaning beneath a Despot, who thinks less

Of precious human blood, than shipwrights count

Of water in the dock, so many feet

Will bear so many tons, if it but aid

One little step his brutalising aims,

Who as an armed thief sacks his people's wealth.

Then shines my Love's star-brightness thro’ the gloom;

And comes, as comes a glorious Conqueror

Returning from that Despot's overthrow,

His brow yet flashed and pale with victory:

Whose prowess long withstood the charging shocks

Of hosts that swarmed; who, baffling with his skill

Their cunning combinations, in good time

Closed his own force and wrought them utmost woe;

Smashed the huge liners of the hostile fleet,

Their swiftest frigates sank to watery hell:

Others he scared like fowls; and trailed the rest

In foamed victorious wake, a captured prize,

Where thronged his people stand in proud acclaim

Of “Welcome, Welcome, Welcome! To our hearts

O Saviour of thy country! to our hearts

O Father of thy people! welcome back!”

And shout in exultation his dear name;

Who moves through storms of music, and beholds

Gay seas of faces tossed with happiness,

And lit through rapture into wondering awe.

And as that grateful multitude forgets

Whatever wrong he may have done, do I

My scathing sorrow, and embrace the good.

And when, in after years, that honoured One

Returns at last unto his native land,

From having wrought his last great victory,

A solemn corpse; in state his people close,

Solemnly to do honour to the dead,

And stand in silence, mid the mournful sway

Of martial music wailing he is gone

Who saved them from the shackles they abhorred;

And in all reverence, with tenderest hands,

And tearful eyes, and hearts that burn and throb,

They lower their consecrated Hero down,

Down sinking slowly to his lasting rest:

Whose glory rises to a settled star

Lighting the land he loved for evermore.

So comes my love to me: its glorious light

Yet hovers sacredly, and guides me on

To grander prospects, and more noble use

Of powers entrusted me. Henceforth my soul

Will never lack a spot whither to flee,

When crowding evils war to shake my faith

In righteousness: for thinking of Her life

Made up of gracious act and sweet regard,

Compassionately tender; and enshrined

In such a form, that oft to my fond eyes

She seemed divine, I scarcely can withhold

My wonder Heaven could spare Her to a world

So stained as ours. And now, whatever come

Of wrong and bitterness to break my strength;

Whatever darkness may be mine to know;

A ray has pierced me from the highest heaven —

I have believed in worth; and do believe.