For he pursued a lonely road,
His eyes on Nature’s plan;
Neither made man too much a god,
Nor God too much a man.
Strong was he, with a spirit free
From mists, and sane and clear;
Clearer, how much! than ours—yet we
Have a worse course to steer.
For, though his manhood bore the blast
Of a tremendous time,
Yet in a tranquil world was passed
His tenderer youthful prime.
But we, brought forth and reared in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise,—
What shelter to grow ripe is ours?
What leisure to grow wise?
Like children bathing on the shore,
Buried a wave beneath,
The second wave succeeds before
We have had time to breathe.
Too fast we live, too much are tried,
Too harassed, to attain
Wordsworth’s sweet calm, or Goethe’s wide
And luminous view to gain.
And then we turn, thou sadder sage,
To thee! we feel thy spell!
—The hopeless tangle of our age,
Thou too hast scanned it well.
Immovable thou sittest, still
As death, composed to bear;
Thy head is clear, thy feeling chill,
And icy thy despair.
Yes, as the son of Thetis said,
I hear thee saying now:
Greater by far than thou are dead;
Strive not! die also thou!
Ah! two desires toss about
The poet’s feverish blood;
One drives him to the world without,
And one to solitude.