The awful convex dark in which I dwell
Is tongued with joy, and chimes a temple bell.
Antiphonally to the choirs on high!
Chime cheerily, dark bell! for were no more
Than consciousness my gift, this were to know
The Giver Good—which sums up all the lore
Eternity can possibly bestow.
Chime! for thy metal is the molten ore
Of the great stars, and marks no wreck below.
I know a gifted and brilliant man in New York who is full of charm and wit in conversation, but the moment he touches a pen he becomes, as a rule, a melancholy pessimist, crying out at the injustice of the world and the uselessness of high endeavor in the field of art.