Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 190 Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. THE TWO VOICES. A STILL Small voice spake unto me, Were it not better not to be?' Then to the still small voice I said: To which the voice did urge reply: Come from the wells where he did lie. 'An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk; from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 'He dried his wings; like gauze they grew: 10 I said, 'When first the world began, 'She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast.' Thereto the silent voice replied: 'This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. 'Think you this mould of hopes and fears It spake, moreover, in my mind: Then did my response clearer fall: 'No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all.' To which he answer'd scoffingly: 'Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense?' 40 30 20 I would have said, 'Thou canst not know,' Again the voice spake unto me: 'Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely, 't were better not to be. 'Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep; Thou canst not think but thou wilt weep.' I said, 'The years with change advance : I shut my life from happier chance. 'Some turn this sickness yet might take, Even yet.' But he 'What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?' : I wept, 'Tho' I should die, I know 'And men, thro' novel spheres of thought 'Yet,' said the secret voice, 'some time Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime. 'Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. 'Not less the bee would range her cells, I said that all the years invent; 'Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower How grows the day of human power?' "The highest-mounted mind,' he said, 'Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead. 'Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main? 'Or make that morn, from his cold crown 'Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let 'Thou hast not gained a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite. "'T were better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek. 70 80 90 'Moreover, but to seem to find I said, 'When I am gone away, 'This is more vile,' he made reply, 'To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die. 'Sick art thou a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still. 'Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound 100 110 120 |