It is—last stage of all—
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost,
Which blamed the living man.
THE PROGRESS OF POESY.
A VARIATION.
Youth rambles on life's arid mount,
And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,
And brings the water from the fount,—
The fount which shall not flow again.
The man mature with labor chops
For the bright stream a channel grand,
And sees not that the sacred drops
Ran off and vanished out of hand.
And then the old man totters nigh,
And feebly rakes among the stones.
The mount is mute, the channel dry;
And down he lays his weary bones.
PIS ALLER.
"Man is blind because of sin;
Revelation makes him sure:
Without that, who looks within
Looks in vain, for all's obscure."
Nay, look closer into man!
Tell me, can you find indeed
Nothing sure, no moral plan
Clear prescribed, without your creed?
