TO SINCERITY

O sweet sincerity! -

Where modern methods be

What scope for thine and thee?

Life may be sad past saying,

Its greens for ever graying,

Its faiths to dust decaying;

And youth may have foreknown it,

And riper seasons shown it,

But custom cries: “Disown it:

“Say ye rejoice, though grieving,

Believe, while unbelieving,

Behold, without perceiving!”

- Yet, would men look at true things,

And unilluded view things,

And count to bear undue things,

The real might mend the seeming,

Facts better their foredeeming,

And Life its disesteeming.