’Mid all things fierce and wild and strange—alone!
Ay! all beside can win companionship:
The churl may clip his mate beneath the thatch,
While his brown urchins nestle at his knees;
The soldier gives and grasps a mutual palm,
Knit to his flesh in sinewy bonds of war;
The knight may seek at eve his castle-gate,
Mount the old stair, and lift the accustomed latch,
To find, for throbbing brow and weary limb,
That paradise of pillows, one true breast.