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 that 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?
