achieved; and if benignly bent They may be treasured blessings through their lives; p. 17Yet power and goodness are to them as dreams, And they heed vaguely, if their waking sight Be met with slanting storm against the pane, Or sunshine glittering on the leaves that play In purest blue of breezy summer morns.

p. 16

p. 17

Whence springs this well of mournfulness profound, Unfathomable to plummet cast by man? Alas; for who can tell! Whence comes the wind Heaving the ocean into maddened arms That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks, And scatter them, as if compacted slight As little eggs boys star against a tree In wanton mischief? Whence, detestable, To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws, The power that in the logging crocodiles’ Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life? That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood Of lava, overwhelming works and men p. 18In burning, fetid ruin?—The power that stings A city with a pestilence: or turns The pretty babe, who in his mother’s lap Babbles her back the lavished kiss and laugh, Through lusts and vassalage to obdurate sin, Into a knife-armed midnight murderer?

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Our lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned As we read stories writ by mortal pen. We can perchance but catch a straying weft And trace the hinted texture here or there, Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates. Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed With one bright child, a wonder in his years, For loveliness and genius versatile: Some common ill destroys him; parents, both, Until their death, are left but living tombs That hold the one dead image of their joy. A man, the flower of honour, who has found His well-beloved young daughter fled from home, Fallen from her maidenhood, a nameless thing p. 19Tainting his blood. A youth who throws the strength Of his whole being into love for one Answering him honeyed smiles, and leaves his land For some far country, seeking wealth he hopes Will grace her daintily with choice delights, And on returning sees the honeyed smiles Are sweetening other lips. A husband who Has found that household curse, a faithless wife. A thinker whose far-piercing care perceives His nation goes the road that ends in shame. A gracious woman whose reserve denies The power to utter what consumes her heart. Such instances (and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace)— Such instances as 

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