I should find them there When I came back again; but there they stood, As in the days they dreamed of when young blood Was in their cheeks and women called them fair. Be sure, they met me with an ancient air, —      And yes, there was a shop-worn brotherhood About them; but the men were just as good, And just as human as they ever were. And you that ache so much to be sublime, And you that feed yourselves with your descent, What comes of all your visions and your fears? Poets and kings are but the clerks of Time, Tiering the same dull webs of discontent, Clipping the same sad alnage of the years. 

  

       Fleming Helphenstine     

      At first I thought there was a superfine Persuasion in his face; but the free glow That filled it when he stopped and cried, "Hollo!"      Shone joyously, and so I let it shine. He said his name was Fleming Helphenstine, But be that as it may; — I only know He talked of this and that and So-and-So, And laughed and chaffed like any friend of mine. But soon, with a queer, quick frown, he looked at me, And I looked hard at him; and there we gazed With a strained shame that made us cringe and wince:      Then, with a wordless clogged apology That sounded half confused and half amazed, He dodged, — and I have never seen him since. 

  

       For a Book by Thomas Hardy     

      With searching feet, through dark circuitous ways, I plunged and stumbled; round me, far and near, Quaint hordes of eyeless phantoms did appear, Twisting and turning in a bootless chase, —      When, like an exile given by God's grace To feel once more a human atmosphere, I caught the world's first murmur, large and clear, Flung from a singing river's endless race. Then, through a magic twilight from below, I heard its grand sad song as in a dream:      Life's wild infinity of mirth and woe It sang me; and, with many a changing gleam, Across the music of its onward flow I saw the cottage lights of Wessex beam. 

  

       Thomas Hood     

      The man who cloaked his bitterness within This winding-sheet of puns and pleasantries, God never gave to look with common eyes Upon a world of anguish and of sin:      His brother was the branded man of Lynn;   

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