Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's?
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers; and I linger on the shore
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience moving toward the stillness of his rest.
Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle horn,—
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn;
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered string?
I am shamed through all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.
Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain—
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain;
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine—
Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat!
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, evil-starred;
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.