Vain labor! Deep and broad, where none may see,
Spring the foundations of that shadowy throne
Where man's one nature, queen-like, sits alone,
Centred in a majestic unity;
And rays her powers, like sister-islands seen
Linking their coral arms under the sea,
Or clustered peaks with plunging gulfs between,
Spanned by aërial arches all of gold,
Whereo'er the chariot-wheels of life are rolled
In cloudy circles to eternity.
TO THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
ON HEARING HIM MISPRAISED.
Because thou hast believed, the wheels of life
Stand never idle, but go always round;
Not by their hands, who vex the patient ground,
Moved only; but by genius, in the strife
Of all its chafing torrents after thaw,
Urged; and to feed whose movement, spinning sand,
The feeble sons of pleasure set their hand;
And, in this vision of the general law,
Hast labored, but with purpose; hast become
Laborious, persevering, serious, firm,—
For this, thy track across the fretful foam
Of vehement actions without scope or term,
Called history, keeps a splendor; due to wit,
Which saw one clew to life, and followed it.
