Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed 50

Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.