Since that which yearns towards minds of men, Which flashes down from brain to lip, Finds but cold truth in mammoth den, With spores, with stars, no fellowship. Say we that our ungamered thought Drifts on the stream of all men's fate, Our travail is a thing of naught, Only because mankind is great. Born to be wasted, even so, And doomed to feel, and lift no voice; Yet not unblessed, because I know So many other souls rejoice. 1863. 

  

       LACORDAIRE AT OXFORD     

      Lost to the Church and deaf to me, this town Yet wears a reverend garniture of peace. Set in a land of trade, like Gideon's fleece Bedewed where all is dry; the Pope may frown; But, if this city is the shrine of youth, How shall the Preacher lord of virgin souls, When by glad streams and laughing lawns he strolls, How can he bless them not? Yet in sad sooth, When I would love these English gownsmen, sighs Heave my frail breast, and weakness dims mine eyes. These strangers heed me not. Far off in France Are young men not so fair, and not so cold, My listeners. Were they here, their greeting glance Might charm me to forget that I were old. 1863. 

  

       A RETROSPECT OF SCHOOL LIFE     

      I go, and men who know me not, When I am reckoned man, will ask,      "What is it then that thou hast got By drudging through that five-year task?       "What knowledge or what art is thine? Set out thy stock, thy craft declare."      Then this child-answer shall be mine,      "I only know they loved me there."       There courteous strivings with my peers, And duties not bound up in books, And courage fanned by stormy cheers, And wisdom writ in pleasant looks, And hardship buoyed with hope, and pain Encountered for the common weal, And glories void of vulgar gain, Were mine to take, were mine to feel. Nor from Apollo did I shrink Like Titans chained; but sweet and low Whispered the Nymphs, who seldom think:      "Up, up for action, run and row!"       He let me, though his smile was grave, Seek an Egeria out of town Beneath the chestnuts; he forgave; And should the jealous Muses frown? Fieldward some remnants of their lore Went with me, as the rhymes of Gray Annealed the heart of Wolfe for war When drifting on his starlit way. Much lost I; something stayed behind, 

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