Thomas Hood

“ To be read what their woe was;—but still it was woe
That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro
In that river of night;—and the gaze of their eyes
Was sad,—and the bend of their brows,—and their cries
Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears
Travell'd down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears
Awaked me, and lo! I was couch'd in a bower,
The growth of long summers rear'd up in an hour!
Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly
From this magic, but could not, because that my eye
Grew love-idle among the rich blooms ”

“ There is no breeze to die on;
And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps,
Could never cut their way with ev’n three sharps
Through such a fog as this, you may rely on.
I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum,
Like a very muffled double drum,
And then a something faintly shrill,
Like Bartlemy Fair’s old buz at Pentonville.
And now and then hear a pop,
As if from Pedley’s Soda Water shop.
I’m almost ill with the strong scent of mud,
And, not to mention sneezing,
My cough is, more than usual, teasing;
I really fear that I have chill’d my blood,
O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! ”

“ In thy bonny locks to shine,—
And if love shows in their glances,
They have learn'd that look of mine!
I LOVE THEE.
I love thee—I love thee!
'Tis all that I can say;—
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day;
The very echo of my heart,
The blessing when I pray:
I love thee—I love thee!
Is all that I can say.
I love thee—I love thee!
Is ever on my tongue;
In all my proudest poesy
That chorus still is sung;
It is the verdict of my eyes,
Amidst the gay and young:
I love thee—I love thee!
A thousand maids among.
I love thee—I love thee! ”

“ Oh, horror! e’en the ship was black that plough’d the inky waves!
“Alas!” I cried, “for love of truth and blessed mercy’s sake,
Where am I? in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake?
What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal?
It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gained my soul!
Oh, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows that beguil’d
My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child,—
My mother dear—my native fields, I never more shall see:
I’m sailing in the Devil’s Ship, upon the Devil’s Sea!” ”

“ Besides, he hoped that time would some day get
The better of love's flame, howover bright;
A thing that time has never compass'd yet,
For love, we know, is an immortal light.
Like that old fire, that, quite beyond a doubt,
Was always in,—for none have found it out.
XIV.
Meanwhile, Bianca dream'd—'twas once when Night
Along the darken'd plain began to creep,
Like a young Hottentot, whose eyes are bright,
Altho' in skin as sooty as a sweep:
The flow'rs had shut their eyes—the zephyr light
Was gone, for it had rock'd the leaves to sleep. ”

“ Then away! away! with all the speed
That golden spurs can give to the steed,—
Both Yellow Boys and Guineas, indeed,
Concurr’d to urge the cattle—
Away they went, with favours white,
Yellow jackets, and panels bright,
And left the mob, like a mob at night,
Agape at the sound of a rattle.
Away! away! they rattled and roll’d,
The Count, and his Bride, and her Leg of Gold—
That faded charm to the charmer!
Away, through old Brentford rang the din,
Of wheels and heels, on their way to win
That hill, named after one of her kin,
The Hill of the Golden Farmer! ”

“ Of worldly toil, vain wishes, and hard strife,
And fruitless thought, in Care's eternal thrall,
Yet more sweet honey than of bitter gall
I taste, through thee, my Eve, my sweet wife.
Then what was Man's lost Paradise!—how rife
Of bliss, since love is with him in his fall!
Such as our own pure passion still might frame,
Of this fair earth, and its delightful bow'rs,
If no fell sorrow, like the serpent, came
To trail its venom o'er the sweetest flow'rs;—
But oh! as many and such tears are ours,
As only should be shed for guilt and shame! ”

“ For her head, her brains, her body, and legs,
Her life’s not worth a copper!
Willy-nilly,
In Piccadilly,
A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly,
A hundred voices cry, “Stop her!”
And one old gentleman stares and stands,
Shakes his head and lifts his hands,
And says, “How very improper!”
On and on!—what a perilous run!
The iron rails seem all mingling in one,
To shut out the Green Park scenery!
And now the Cellar its dangers reveals.
She shudders—she shrieks—she’s doom’d, she feels,
To be torn by powers of horses and wheels,
Like a spinner by steam machinery! ”

“ But woe, deep water and woe to him,
That she snareth like Peter Fin!
Her head is crowned with pretty sea-wares,
And her locks are golden loose,
And seek to her feet, like other folks' heirs,
To stand, of course, in her shoes!
And all day long she combeth them well,
With a sea-shark's prickly jaw;
And her mouth is just like a rose-lipped shell,
The fairest that man e'er saw!
And the Fishmonger, humble as love may be
Hath planted his seat by her side;
"Good even, fair maid! Is thy lover at sea,
To make thee so watch the tide?" ”

“ A broker will take up her bed and walk
By way of curing her sorrow.
No cause like these she had to bewail,
But the breath of applause had blown a gale,
And winds from that quarter seldom fail
To cause some human commotion;
But whenever such breezes coincide
With the very spring-tide
Of human pride,
There’s no such swell on the ocean!
Peace, and ease, and slumber lost,
She turn’d, and roll’d, and tumbled and toss’d
With a tumult that would not settle:
A common case, indeed, with such
As have too little, or think too much,
Of the precious and glittering metal. ”

“ The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine:—
Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow
Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine.
Here are red roses, gather'd at thy cheeks,—
The white were all too happy to look white:
For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks;
It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright!
Dost love sweet Hyacinth? Its scented leaf
Curls manifold,—all love's delights blow double:
'Tis said this flow'ret is inscribed with grief,—
But let that hint of a forgotten trouble.
I pluck'd the Primrose at night's dewy noon ”

“ She look’d as siren ought to look,
A sharp and bitter shrew,
To sing deceiving lullabies
For mariners to rue,—
But when he saw her lips apart,
It chill’d him through and through!
With either hand he stopp’d his ears
Against her evil cry;
Alas, alas, for all his care,
His doom it seem’d to die,
Her voice went ringing through his head
It was so sharp and high!
He thrust his fingers farther in
At each unwilling ear,
But still in very spite of all,
The words were plain and clear;
“I can’t stand here the whole day long,
To hold your glass of beer!” ”

“ Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear,
But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright
To grow to large manhood of merciful might.
He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel,
The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel,
And question'd my face with wide eyes; but when under
My lids he saw tears,—for I wept at his wonder,
He stroked me, and utter'd such kindliness then,
That the once love of women, the friendship of men
In past sorrow, no kindness e'er came like a kiss
On my heart in its desolate day such as this! ”

“ Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
You’ll sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds,
Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket,
With thirty per cent. as a tax on your heads,—
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
You’ll see old Cologne,—not the sweetest of towns,—
Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it;
And you’ll pay your three dollars to look at three crowns,—
Take care of your pocket!—take care of your pocket!
You’ll count seven Mountains, and see Roland’s Eck,
Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett ”

“ Once they were black and well beloved,
But thou art changed,—and so are they!
The useless lock I gave thee once,
To gaze upon and think of me,
Was ta'en with smiles,—but this was torn
In sorrow that I send to thee!
SONG.
The stars are with the voyager
Wherever he may sail;
The moon is constant to her time;
The sun will never fail;
But follow, follow round the world,
The green earth and the sea,
So love is with the lover's heart,
Wherever he may be.
Wherever he may be, the stars
Must daily lose their light;
The moon will veil her in the shade ”

“ He look’d so lone, and so unwived,
That soon the Widow Cross contrived
To fall in love with even that band;
And all at once the brackish juices
Came gushing out thro’ sorrow’s sluices—
Tear after tear too fast to wipe,
Tho’ sopp’d, and sopp’d, and sopp’d again—
No leak in sorrow’s private pipe,
But like a bursting on the main!
Whoe’er has watch’d the window-pane—
I mean to say in showery weather—
Has seen two little drops of rain,
Like lovers very fond and fain,
At one another creeping, creeping,
Till both, at last, embrace together:
So far’d it with that couple’s weeping! ”

“ For why should I love her with love that would bring
All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing?
Because of her rival,—even Her whose witch-face
I had slighted, and therefore was doom'd in that place
To roam, and had roam'd, where all horrors grew rank,
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank;
Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail
To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale
Of Scylla,—and Picus, imprison'd to speak
His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker's beak. ”

“ The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn’d,
That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!
There was white on the grass—there was white on the spray—
Her garden—it look’d like a garden of May!
But now all is dark—not a shirt’s on a shrub—
You’ve ruined her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!
You’ve ruin’d her custom—now families drop her—
From her silver reduced—nay, reduced from her copper!
The last of her washing is done at her eye,
One poor little kerchief that never gets dry! ”

“ Thus they fled—not forgotten—but often to grow
Like fears in my eyes, when I walk'd to and fro
In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean
I knew not, nor whether the love I had won
Was of heaven or hell—till one day in the sun,
In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky,
Half-seen and half-dream'd in the soul of his eye. ”

“ And now the fretting foaming tide
He steer’d away to cross;
The bounding pinnace play’d a game
Of dreary pitch and toss;
A game that, on the good dry land,
Is apt to bring a loss!
V.
Good Heaven befriend that little boat,
And guide her on her way!
A boat, they say, has canvas wings,
But cannot fly away!
Though, like a merry singing-bird,
She sits upon the spray!
VI.
Still east by south the little boat,
With tawny sail, kept beating:
Now out of sight, between two waves,
Now o’er th’ horizon fleeting:
Like greedy swine that feed on mast,—
The waves her mast seem’d eating! ”

“ And ne'er had seen the skies:
For Mature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes.
So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forc'd to do—
Look out for pupils, for he had
A vacancy for two.
There's some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small:
But Tim had specks within his eyes,
And could not see at all.
Now Tim he woo'd a servant-maid,
And took her to his arms;
For he, like Pyramus, had cast
A wall-eye on her charms.
By day she led him up and down
Where'er he wished to jog,
A happy wife, altho' she led
The life of any dog. ”

“ If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,
Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,—
O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,—
And lend me your ear,—Let me modestly plead
For a race that your labours may soon supersede—
For a race that, now washing no living affords—
Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,
Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,
Not with bread in the funds—or investments of cheese,
But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream,
Which the sun has suck’d up into vapour and steam. ”

“ From the trumpets that gather'd whole bands in one fame
As a chorus of man,—and they stream'd from the gates
Like a dusky libation poured out to the Fates.
But at times there were gentler processions of peace
That I watch'd with my soul in my eyes till their cease,
There were women! there men! but to me a third sex
I saw them all dots—yet I loved them as specks:
And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes
I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise
Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten
By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten! ”

“ It’s very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That’s worth a pen’s report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow’d, and rail’d, and came home safe,—
There’s no Romance in that!
The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,—
There’s no Romance in that!
Love—even love—goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track—
No flinty sire, no jealous Don! ”

“ And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss;
One—only one—hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!
Oh, Heav'n! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream!
In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current's might:
On—on—still on—direct for doom, the river rush'd in force,
And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its course.
My eyes I closed—I dared not look the way towards the goal ”

“ When safe, and sheltered, and at ease,
He hears the storm that cannot harm him.
But hark! those shouts! that sudden din
Of little hearts that laugh within.
Oh! take him where the youngsters play,
And he will grow as young as they!
They come! they come! each blue-eyed Sport,
The Twelfth-Night King and all his court—
'Tis Mirth fresh crown'd with misletoe!
Music with her merry fiddles,
Joy "on light fantastic toe,"
Wit with all his jests and riddles,
Singing and dancing as they go.
And Love, young Love, among the rest,
A welcome—nor unbidden guest. ”

“ And the sky grew cloudy and black,
And the tumbling billows like leap-frog came,
Each over the other's back!
Ah me! it had been a beautiful scene,
With the safe terra-firma round;
But the green water-hillocks all seem'd to him
Like those in a churchyard ground;
And Christians love in the turf to lie,
Not in watery graves to be;
Nay, the very fishes will sooner die
On the land than in the sea.
And whilst he stood, the watery strife
Encroached on every hand,
And the ground decreased,—his moments of life
Seemed measured, like Time's, by sand ”

“ In an orb as bright,
How thy soul doth fold me
In its throne of light!
Sorrow never paineth,
Nor a care attaineth
To that blessed height.
THE FORSAKEN.
The dead are in their silent graves,
And the dew is cold above,
And the living weep and sigh,
Over dust that once was love.
Once I only wept the dead,
But now the living cause my pain:
How couldst thou steal me from my tears,
To leave me to my tears again?
My Mother rests beneath the sod,—
Her rest is calm and very deep:
I wish'd that she could see our loves,—
But now I gladden in her sleep. ”

“ And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!
Perchance the strings will sound less clear,
That long have lain neglected by
In sorrow's misty atmosphere;
It ne'er may speak as it hath spoken
Such joyous notes so brisk and high;
But are its golden chords all broken?
Are there not some, though weak and low,
To play a lullaby to woe?
But thou canst sing of love no more,
For Celia show'd that dream was vain;
And many a fancied bliss is o'er,
That comes not e'en in dreams again.
Alas! alas! ”

“ But Love may haunt the grave of Love,
And watch the mould in vain.
O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine,
And do not take my tears amiss;
For tears must flow to wash away
A thought that shows so stern as this:
Forgive, if somewhile I forget,
In woe to come, the present bliss;
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis,
Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss.
The sunniest things throw sternest shade,
And there is ev'n a happiness
That makes the heart afraid!
Now let us with a spell invoke
The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes ”

“ Lives not within the humor of the eye;—
Not being but an outward phantasy,
That skims the surface of a tinted cheek,—
Else it would wane with beauty, and grow weak,
As if the rose made summer,—and so lie
Amongst the perishable things that die,
Unlike the love which I would give and seek:
Whose health is of no hue—to feel decay
With cheeks' decay, that have a rosy prime.
Love is its own great loveliness alway,
And takes new lustre from the touch of time;
Its bough owns no December and no May,
But bears its blossom into Winter's clime.
THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. [9] ”

“ Grief is enough to blot the eye,
And make heaven black with misery.
Why should birds sing such merry notes,
Unless they were more blest than we?
No sorrow ever chokes their throats,
Except sweet nightingale; for she
Was born to pain our hearts the more
With her sad melody.
Why shines the Sun, except that he
Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide,
And pensive shades for Melancholy,
When all the earth is bright beside?
Let clay wear smiles, and green grass wave,
Mirth shall not win us back again,
Whilst man is made of his own grave,
And fairest clouds but gilded rain! ”

“ Oh! will not Mirth's light arrows fail
To pierce that frozen coat of mail?
Oh! will not joy but strive in vain
To light up those glazed eyes again?
No! take him in, and blaze the oak,
And pour the wine, and warm the ale;
His sides shall shake to many a joke,
His tongue shall thaw in many a tale,
His eyes grow bright, his heart be gay,
And even his palsy charm'd away.
What heeds he then the boisterous shout
Of angry winds that scowl without,
Like shrewish wives at tavern door?
What heeds he then the wild uproar
Of billows bursting on the shore? ”

“ Or Love, the life of song!
Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S—— I daren't address—
I'm not a single man.
Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part.
They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears—
I'm not a single man.
Upon your cheek I may not speak,
Nor on your lip be warm,
I must be wise about your eyes,
And formal with your form ”

“ Together pant in everlasting life!
STANZAS. [15]
Is there a bitter pang for love removed,
O God! The dead love doth not cost more tears
Than the alive, the loving, the beloved—
Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears!
Would I were laid
Under the shade
Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years,—
That love might die with sorrow:—I am sorrow;
And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press
Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow
Only new anguish from the old caress;
Oh, this world's grief
Hath no relief
In being wrung from a great happiness. ”

“ How fearfully she roll'd her eyes between the earth and sky,
As if in wild uncertainty to gallop or to fly!
While with her hoof she scoop'd the sand as if before she gave
My plunge into eternity she meant to dig my grave!
And I, that ne'er could calmly hear a horse's ears at play—
Or hear without a yard of jump his shrill and sudden neigh—
Whose foot within a stable-door had never stood an inch—
Whose hand to pat a living steed would feel an awful flinch,—
I that had never thrown a leg across a pony small,
To scour the pathless desert on the tallest of the tall! ”

“ But I will guide thee with my helping eyes,
Or—walk the wide world through, devoid of sight,—
Yet thou shalt know me by my many sighs.
Nay, then thou should'st have spared my roses, false Death,
And known Love's flow'r by smelling his sweet breath;"
LXXXVII.
"Or, when thy furious rage was round him dealing,
Love should have grown from touching of his skin;
But like cold marble thou art all unfeeling.
And hast no ruddy springs of warmth within,
And being but a shape of freezing bone,
Thy touching only turn'd my love to stone!"
LXXXVIII.
"And here, alas! ”

“ For there stood Hero, widow'd at a glance,
The foreseen sum of many a tedious fact,
Pale cheeks, dim eyes, and wither'd countenance,
A wasted ruin that no wasting lack'd;
Time's tragic consequents ere time began,
A world of sorrow in a tear-drop's span.
XLI.
A moment's thinking is an hour in words,—
An hour of words is little for some woes;
Too little breathing a long life affords
For love to paint itself by perfect shows;
Then let his love and grief unwrong'd lie dumb,
Whilst Fear, and that it fears, together come. ”

“ A crook becomes a shepherdess.
HUGGINS.
When Peggy's dog her arms empris'n
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.
DUGGINS.
I tell Sall's lambs how blest they be,
To stand about, and stare at she;
But when I look, she turns and shies,
And won't bear none but their sheep's eyes!
HUGGINS.
Love goes with Peggy where she goes,—
Beneath her smile the garden grows;
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts,
'Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts! ”

“ Love had become his universal foe,
Salt in his sugar—nightmare in his bed,
At last, no wonder wretched Julio,
A sorrow-ridden thing, in utter dearth
Of hope,—made up his mind to cut her girth!
X.
For hapless lovers always died of old,
Sooner than chew reflection's bitter cud;
So Thisbe stuck herself, what time 'tis told,
The tender-hearted mulberries wept blood;
And so poor Sappho when her boy was cold,
Drown'd her salt tear drops in a salter flood,
Their fame still breathing, tho' their breath be past,
For those old suitors lived beyond their last. ”

“ To tell of pain, and love, and love's deep wrong—
Hinting a piteous tale—perchance how long
Thy unknown tears were mingled with the lake,
What time disguised thy leafy mates among—
And no eye knew what human love and ache
Dwelt in those dewy leaves, and heart so nigh to break.
XVIII.
Therefore no poet will ungently touch
The water-lily, on whose eyelids dew
Trembles like tears; but ever hold it such
As human pain may wander through and through,
Turning the pale leaf paler in its hue—
Wherein life dwells, transfigured, not entomb'd,
By magic spells. Alas! ”

“ And still a large late love of all thy kind.
Spite of the world's cold practice and Time's tooth,—
For all these gifts, I know not, in fair sooth,
Whether to give thee joy, or bid thee blind
Thine eyes with tears,—that thou hast not resign'd
The passionate fire and freshness of thy youth:
For as the current of thy life shall flow,
Gilded by shine of sun or shadow-stain'd,
Through flow'ry valley or unwholesome fen,
Thrice blessed in thy joy, or in thy woe
Thrice cursed of thy race,—thou art ordain'd
To share beyond the lot of common men. ”

“ CCCXVI.
'Tis a stern and startling thing to think
How often mortality stands on the brink
Of its grave without any misgiving:
And yet in this slippery world of strife,
In the stir of human bustle so rife,
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life
Is dying, and Death is living!
CCCXVII.
Ay, Beauty the Girl, and Love the Boy,
Bright as they are with hope and joy,
How their souls would sadden instanter,
To remember that one of those wedding bells,
Which ring so merrily through the dells,
Is the same that knells
Our last farewells,
Only broken into a canter! ”

“ In pity a maid without eyes for my sake,
And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask'd of the wave,
What monster I was, and it trembled and gave
The true shape of my grief, and I turn'd with my face
From all waters forever, and fled through that place,
Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass'd
Its bounds, and the world was before me at last.
There I wander'd in sorrow, and shunned the abodes
Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods,
But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun
On the cities, where man was a million, not one ”

“ How wide the yew-tree spreads its gloom,
And o'er the dead lets fall its dew,
As if in tears it wept for them,
The many human families
That sleep around its stem!
How cold the dead have made these stones,
With natural drops kept ever wet!
Lo! here the best—the worst—the world
Doth now remember or forget,
Are in one common ruin hurl'd,
And love and hate are calmly met;
The loveliest eyes that ever shone,
The fairest hands, and locks of jet.
Is't not enough to vex our souls,
And fill our eyes, that we have set
Our love upon a rose's leaf,
Our hearts upon a violet? ”

“ And, for thy love to us in our extremes,
Will ever keep thy chaplet fresh and green,
Such as no poet's wreath hath ever been!"
CVII.
"And we'll distil thee aromatic dews,
To charm thy sense, when there shall be no flow'rs;
And flavor'd syrups in thy drinks infuse,
And teach the nightingale to haunt thy bow'rs,
And with our games divert thy weariest hours,
With all that elfin wits can e'er devise.
And, this churl dead, there'll be no hasting hours
To rob thee of thy joys, as now joy flies":—
Here she was stopp'd by Saturn's furious cries. ”

“ My pleasure from the sky!
'Twas paper'd o'er with studious themes,
The tasks I wrote—my present dreams
Will never soar so high!
V.
My joys are wingless all and dead;
My dumps are made of more than lead;—
My flights soon find a fall;
My fears prevail, my fancies droop,
Joy never cometh with a hoop,
And seldom with a call!
VI.
My football's laid upon the shelf;
I am a shuttlecock myself
The world knocks to and fro;—
My archery is all unlearn'd,
And grief against myself has turn'd
My arrows and my bow!
VII.
No more in noontide sun I bask ”