And the pure goal of being reach;
Hoar-headed, wrinkled, clad in white,
Without companion, without speech,
By day and night
Pondering God's mysteries untold,
And tranquil as the glacier-snows
He by those Indian mountains old
Might well repose.
Some grey crusading knight austere,
Who bore Saint Louis company,
And came home hurt to death, and here
Landed to die;
Some youthful troubadour, whose tongue
Fill'd Europe once with his love-pain,
Who here outworn had sunk, and sung
His dying strain;
Some girl, who here from castle-bower,
With furtive step and cheek of flame,
'Twixt myrtle-hedges all in flower
By moonlight came
To meet her pirate-lover's ship;
And from the wave-kiss'd marble stair
Beckon'd him on, with quivering lip
And floating hair;
And lived some moons in happy trance,
Then learnt his death and pined away—
Such by these waters of romance
'Twas meet to lay.
But you—a grave for knight or sage,
Romantic, solitary, still,
O spent ones of a work-day age!
Befits you ill.
So sang I; but the midnight breeze,
Down to the brimm'd, moon-charmed main,
Comes softly through the olive-trees,
And checks my strain.
I think of her, whose gentle tongue
All plaint in her own cause controll'd;
Of thee I think, my brother! young
In heart, high-soul'd—
That comely face, that cluster'd brow,
That cordial hand, that bearing free,
I see them still, I see them now,
Shall always see!