Some scholarship he may have gained in youth:

Gone—dropt or flung behind. Some blossom-flake,

Spring's boon, descends on every vernal head,

I used to think; but January joins

December, as his year had known no May;

Trouble its snow-deposit,—cold and old!

I heard it was his will to take a wife,

A helpmate. Duty bade him tend and teach—

How? with experience null, nor sympathy

Abundant,—while himself worked dogma dead,