Poems (Hardy)/Vocations
VOCATIONS
"IF this be all of life," said one who fared
Along a hillward way with head perpend,
"If this be all of life, why, come the end!
What good in joys one has not had and shared?
Yon minstrel, velvet-clad and yellow-haired,—
The king keeps him to stare and fool and spend'—
I would be he, would but my fortune mend;
Forget what I aspired to, what I dared."
He laid him down beneath a thicket shade;
He slept a dreamless sleep and saw the world
Anew; he rose and lifted up a stone
And set it in a torrent's path and made
A city safe from ruin, all but hurled
Upon its peace by mountain tempests thrown.
Along a hillward way with head perpend,
"If this be all of life, why, come the end!
What good in joys one has not had and shared?
Yon minstrel, velvet-clad and yellow-haired,—
The king keeps him to stare and fool and spend'—
I would be he, would but my fortune mend;
Forget what I aspired to, what I dared."
He laid him down beneath a thicket shade;
He slept a dreamless sleep and saw the world
Anew; he rose and lifted up a stone
And set it in a torrent's path and made
A city safe from ruin, all but hurled
Upon its peace by mountain tempests thrown.