And seeing not, I picture thee, by stealth:

It wants thy equal, to report thy praise,

Let such fill up the inkling in these lays.

{55}

{55}

LV.

Dear child of joy, who read thy soul shall find,

That all things shifting, man must vary too;

Sometimes in thunder, earthquake, and in wind,

Nature will mourn, so grief her sons should woo;

But when the winning breeze coys with the sail,

That bears thy bark along the flowing wave;

Then, know, perfection lives not in the pale

Of that small space, where thy mad fancies rave:

If there’s no happiness, then conquer time,

And grandly dare to build, scorning blind Fate;

Fate lives enshrined within the spirit sublime,

Which o’er a faltering world asserts its weight.

Let fools of circumstance wither and yield,

Some in themselves foster the fate they wield.

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