TO _drift with every passion till my soul_
_Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play_,
_Is it for this that I have given away_
_Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control_?
_Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll_
_Scrawled over on some boyish holiday_
_With idle songs for pipe and virelay_,
_Which do but mar the secret of the whole_.
_Surely there was a time I might have trod_
_The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance_
_Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God_:
_Is that time dead_? _lo_! _with a little rod_
_I did but touch the honey of romance_—
_And must I lose a soul’s inheritance_?