Ballads and Lyrical poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Alone, amid a million souls,
Round him the tide of people rolls;
But lorn and desolate is he,
None heeding what his lot may be—
A drop of water in the sea.

II

'Mid all the crowds that round him swarm,
He feels for him no heart will warm;
There is not one that knows his name,
Or cares to ask him whence he came;
His life or death to them the same.

III

The rich man's chariot passes by,
And lackeys with a saucy eye,
From outside plush and inward meals,
Grin at him, as the rattling wheels
Splash him all o'er, from head to heels.

IV

He walketh on, a friendless boy,
With much of hope, with little joy;
Elbow'd for ever by the proud,
As if they grudged the room allow'd
To this mean mortal in the crowd.

V

On through the busy mass he goes,
But whither bent he scarcely knows;
Through lane and street, and park and square,
And looks at wealth he may not share,
Though he is hungry and half-bare.

VI

For him amid these houses small—
For him amid these mansions tall,
There is not one, where he could go,
And say, “I am a child of woe;
To cheer me, let the wine-cup flow.”

VII

No; he is friendless and alone—
To no one are his sorrows known—
His hope, or joy, or grief, or fear,
There is not one would care to hear,
Or say the word, “Be thou of cheer!”

VIII

And evil thoughts will sometimes rise,
When flaunting wealth affronts his eyes;
Envy, perchance, and discontent,
That he into this world was sent—
No good with all his evils blent.

IX

“No good?” saith he. “Ah, surely wrong!
Fresh health and youth to me belong;
And from endurance I can learn
Still to endure, and never turn
From the high thoughts with which I burn.”

X

And still within himself he says,
“Each man must pass his evil days—
Each man should suffer ere his prime,
If up the world's high steeps he'd climb,
Some grief to fit him for his time.

XI

“I am not all alone nor sad;
The face of Nature makes me glad,
The breath of morn, the evening's sigh,
The contemplation of the sky,
That fills my soul with yearnings high;—

XII

“The leafy glory of the woods,
The rushing of the mountain floods,
The wind that bends the lofty tree,
The roaring of the eternal sea,—
All yield an inward joy to me.

XIII

I find a pleasure in the sight
Of meadows green and corn-fields bright;
I find a pleasure in the lay
Of birds that hail the breaking day,
Or warble to the moonlight gray.

XIV

“If no man loves me, Nature's voice
Is kind, and bids my heart rejoice:
The path I go, true souls have trod;
I will look upwards from the clod,
With a firm heart, and trust in God.”

XV

And thus he walks from hour to hour,
From day to day, and gains new power
Over himself; and undismay'd,
In conscious rectitude array'd,
He labours as his impulse bade.

XVI

He looks on hardship, and it sinks;
He measures peril, and it shrinks;
Before him difficulties fly,
Scared by that quietude of eye,
Serene to suffer or defy.

XVII

And still, 'mid the perennial strife
With worldly things, that makes his life,
He never plays the worldling's part,
Or ever from his grateful heart
Allows the freshness to depart.

XVIII

Amid the city's ceaseless hum,
Still to his soul the visions come
Of the green woodlands far away,
Where, in communion all the day
With Nature, he was wont to stray.

XIX

And mixing with his fellows, still
He finds some good amid the ill;
And pitying those whose souls are blind,
Nor hating those of evil mind,
He learns to love all human kind.

XX

To him all errors of the past
Teach wisdom where his lot is cast;
And after struggles hard and long,
With self, and with temptation strong,
And pride that sought to lead him wrong,—

XXI

He learns this truth; that nought below
Can lasting recompense bestow
But Virtue;—that the Love of Fame
Is something better than a name,
If Love of Virtue feed its flame;—

XXII

That to the mind not mured in self,
Nor toiling for the love of pelf,
Wealth may be worth its cost of brain,
That gives the power to solace pain,
And lift the fallen up again.

XXIII

Take courage, ye who wander here,
Lonely and sad, and be of cheer!
This man, who had no aids to climb,
But his true heart and soul sublime,
Lives in the annals of his time.

XXIV

So, by an ever wise decree,
The drop of water in the sea
Awakens to a glorious birth,
Becomes a pearl of matchless worth,
And shines resplendent in the earth.