With each repeating its allotted prayer

And thus divides and thus relieves the time;

Smooth task, with his[661] compared, whose mind could string,

Not scantily, bright minutes on the thread

Of keen domestic anguish; and beguile

A solitude, unchosen, unprofessed;

Till gentlest death released him.

"Far from us

Be the desire—too curiously to ask

How much of this is but the blind result