And in a lonely room where no light was, Save what the moon made at the casement there, Sat pondering his hurt, and in the dark Gave audience to a host of grievances. For never comes reflection, gay or grave, But it brings with it comrades of its hue. So did he fall to thinking how his day Declined, and how his narrow life had run Obscurely through an age of great events Such as men never saw, nor will again Until the globe be riven by God's fire. Others had ventured for the Golden Fleece, Knaves of no parts at all, and got renown,      (By force of circumstance and not desert,)      While he up there on that rock-bastioned coast Had rotted like some old hulk's skeleton, Whose naked and bleached ribs the lazy tide Laps day by day, and no man thinks of more. Then was jade Fortune in her lavish mood. Why had he not for distant Colchis sailed And been the Jason of these Argonauts? True, some had come to block on Tower Hill, Or quittance made in a less noble sort; Still they had lived, from life's high-mantling cup Had blown the bead. In such case, if one's head Be of its momentary laurel stripped And made a show of stuck on Temple Bar Or at the Southwark end of London Bridge, What mattered it? At worst man dies but once—      So far as known.  One may not master death, But life should be one's lackey. He had been Time's dupe and bondsman; ever since his birth Had walked this planet with his eye oblique, Grasped what was worthless, what were most dear missed; Missed love and fame, and all the sum of things Fame gets a man in England—the Queen's smile, Which means, when she 's in humor, abbey-lands, Appointments, stars and ribbons for the breast, And that sleek adulation that takes shape I' the down-drooping of obsequious lids When one ascends a stair or walks the pave. Good Lord! but it was excellent to see How Expectation in the ante-room Crooks back to Greatness passing to the Queen—      “Kind sir!” “Sweet sir!” “I prithee speed my suit!”       'T was somewhat to be flattered, though by fools, For even a fool's coin hath a kind of ring. Yet after all—thus did the grapes turn sour To master Fox, in fable—who would care To moil and toil to gain a little fame, And have each rascal that prowls under heaven Stab one for getting it? Had he wished power, The thing was in the market-place for sale At stated rates—so much for a man's soul! His was a haughty spirit that bent not, And one to rise had need to cringe and creep. So had his brother into favor crawled, Like slug into the bosom 

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