Our happy home till now. Yet not for this

Can we escape our share of human fears

And dim forebodings, chiefly when we think

Under what hostile influence malign

They may grow up, for whom their life is cast{4}

{4}

Now to begin in this unhappy age,

When all, that by a solemn majesty

And an enduring being once rebuked

And put to shame the sordid thoughts of man,

Must be no more permitted to affront

Him and his littleness, or bid him back

Unto the higher tasks and nobler cares

For which he lives, for which his life is lent.

Yet what though all things must be common now,

And nothing sacred, nothing set apart,

But each enclosure by rude hands laid waste,

That did fence in from the world’s wilderness

Some spot of holy ground, wherein might grow

The tender slips, the planting of the Lord;

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