In vain shalt thou, or any, call
The spirits from their golden day, Except, like them, thou too canst say,
My spirit is at peace with all.
They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair, The memory like a cloudless air, The conscience as a sea at rest:
But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits, They can but listen at the gates, And hear the household jar within.
L.
Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side? Is there no baseness we would hide? No inner vileness that we dread?
Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence for his blame, See with clear eye some hidden shame, And I be lessened in his love?
I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
Shall love be blamed for want of faith? There must be wisdom with great Death: The dead shall look me through and through.
Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours With larger other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all.
LXXII.