WE overstate the ills of life, and
Imagination (given us to bring
The choirs of singing angels
By God's clear glory) down our earth to
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk
The shadow of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers: near the alder
We sigh so loud, the nightingale
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of
EF !—holy
That by the grief of
NE came all our good.
