VIII.
ALAS, that ever life’s sleek counterfeit,
Convention, should usurp life’s very throne,
Setting about the bitter and the sweet
Observances the soul disdains to own.
It muffles up with bland expedient tongue
The wise examination of the mind,
Bribing the old and threatening the young
And offering easy conduct to the blind.
A handbook of few rules for many cases,
One answer to more sums than it can prove,
With prizes for apt scholars in its paces,
A veil for knowledge and a ring for love;
And this smooth text for any questioning heart—
Know not, and be less than, the thing thou art.
IX.
LOVE needs not two the render it complete,
O certainly love needs not even one!
Sweet singing wants no listener to be sweet,
And unseen light’s still proper to the sun.
When sunlight falls upon unpeopled valleys
No presence can increase or dim its fall,
When nightingales sing in deserted alleys
No ear can make the night more musical.
If solitary into the light and song
I come, I know I have my treasure whole,
Yea, and still have it whole, although a throng
Runs after me down paths whereby I stole,
Yea, and still have it whole, though only one
Should follow me—or none, beloved, or none.
X.
WHAT is this anguish then that always stands
Mingled in love, if love be love’s sole end?
O it is life still gasping his commands
And crying love therein to stand his friend.
Life drives us all whether we love or no,
We are life’s purpose, he much less is ours,
And we like panting beasts in harness go
While his fierce needs make torments of our powers.
Only when love across the heavy fields
Divinely treads to labour with the clods,
He breaks the goad that life is glad to yield,
And lifts the yoke that bowed us to the sods:
Upstanding, we behold a God revealed,
And serve life’s purpose not like beasts but gods.