In some there lies a sorrow too profound To find a voice or to reveal itself Throughout the strain of daily toil, or thought, Or during converse born of souls allied,
As aught men understand. And though mayhap Their cheeks will thin or droop; and wane their eyes’ Frank lustre; hair may lose its hue, or fall; And health may slacken low in force; and they
Are older than the warrant of their years; Yet they to others seem to gild their lives With cheerfulness, and every duty tend, As if their aspects told the truth within.
But they are not as others: not for them The bounding pulse, and ardour of desire, The rapture and the wonder in things new; The hope that palpitating enters where
Perfection smiles on universal life; Nor do they with elastic enterprise Forecast delight in compassing results; Nor, having won their ends, fall godlike back
And taste the calm completion of content. But in a sober chilled grey atmosphere Work out their lives; more various though they are Than creatures in the unknown ocean depths,
Yet each in whom this vital grief has root Is dull to what makes everything of worth. And though, may be, a shallow bodily joy Oft tingles through them at the breathing spring,
Or first-heard exultation of the lark; Still that deep weight draws ever steadily Their thoughts and passions back to secret woe. Though, if endowed with light, heroic deeds
May be achieved; and if benignly bent They may be treasured blessings through their lives; Yet power and goodness are to them as dreams, And they heed vaguely, if their waking sight
Be met with slanting storm against the pane, Or sunshine glittering on the leaves that play In purest blue of breezy summer morns. Whence springs this well of mournfulness profound,
Unfathomable to plummet cast by man? Alas; for who can tell! Whence comes the wind Heaving the ocean into maddened arms That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks,
And scatter them, as if compacted slight As little eggs boys star against a tree In wanton mischief? Whence, detestable, To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws,
The power that in the logging crocodiles’ Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life? That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood Of lava, overwhelming works and men
In burning, fetid ruin?— The power that stings A city with a pestilence: or turns The pretty babe, who in his mother's lap Babbles her back the lavished kiss and laugh,
Through lusts and vassalage to obdurate sin, Into a knife-armed midnight murderer? Our lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned As we read stories writ by mortal pen.
We can perchance but catch a straying weft And trace the hinted texture here or there, Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates. Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed
With one bright child, a wonder in his years, For loveliness and genius versatile: Some common ill destroys him; parents, both, Until their death, are left but living tombs
That hold the one dead image of their joy. A man, the flower of honour, who has found His well-beloved young daughter fled from home, Fallen from her maidenhood, a nameless thing
Tainting his blood. A youth who throws the strength Of his whole being into love for one Answering him honeyed smiles, and leaves his land For some far country, seeking wealth he hopes
Will grace her daintily with choice delights, And on returning sees the honeyed smiles Are sweetening other lips. A husband who Has found that household curse, a faithless wife.
A thinker whose far-piercing care perceives His nation goes the road that ends in shame. A gracious woman whose reserve denies The power to utter what consumes her heart.
Such instances ( and some a loss to know, Which steadfast reticence will shield from those, Debased or garrulous, whose hearts corrupt, But learn the gloomy secrets of their kind
To poison-tip their wit, or grope and grin With pharisaic laughter at disgrace ) — Such instances as these demand no guide To thrid the dismal issues from their source!
But others are there, lying fast concealed, Dark, hopeless, and unutterably sad, Which have not been, and never may be known. Then we may well call happy one whose grief,
Mixed up with sacred memories of the past, Can tell to others how the tempest rose, That struck and left him lonely in the world; And who, narrating, feels his sorrow soothed,
By that respect which love and sorrow claim. It much behoves us all, but chiefly those Whom fate has favoured with an easy trust, To keep a bridle upon restless speech
And thought: and not in flagrant haste prejudge The first presentment as the rounded truth. For true it is, that rapid thoughts, and freak Of skimming word, and glance, more frequently
Than either malice, settled hate, or scorn, Support confusion, and pervert the right; Set up the weakling in the strong man's place; And yoke the great one's strength to idleness;
Pour gold into the squanderer's purse, and suck The wealth, which is a power, from their control Who would have turned it unto noble use. And oftentimes a man will strike his friend,
By random verbiage, with sharper pain Than could a foe, yet scarcely mean him wrong; For none can strip this complex masquerade And know who languishes with secret wounds.
They whom the brunt of war has maimed in limb, Who lean on crutches to sustain their weight, Are manifest to all; and reverence For their misfortunes kindly gains them place:
But wounds, sometimes more deep and dangerous, We may in careless jostle through the crowd, Gall and oppress, because to us unknown. Then, howsoever by our needs impelled,
Let us resolve to move in gentleness; Judge mildly when we doubt; and pause awhile Before injustice palpably proclaimed Ere we let fall the judgment stroke: against
Their ignominious craft, who ever wait To filch another's right, we will maintain Majestic peace in silence; knowing well Their craft takes something richer from themselves.
It is but seemly to respect the great; But never let us fail toward lowly ones; Respecting more, in that they lack the force To claim it of the world. For souls there are
Of poor capacities, whose purpose holds, Throughout their unregarded lives, a worth, And earnest law of fixed integrity, That were an honour even unto those
Whose genius marks the boundaries of our race.
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