University of Virginia Library

Who, loving leisure and his studious ease,
And books, and what of noblest lore they bring,
Will not confess that sometimes, called aside
To humbler work and less delightful tasks,
He has been tempted to exclaim in heart—
‘How pleasant were it might we only dwell,
And ever hold sweet converse undisturbed
Thus with the choicest spirits of the world
In council, and in letters, and in arms.
Easy to live with, always at command,
They come at bidding, at our word depart,
Friends whose society not ever cloys.
Glorious it were by intercourse with these
To learn whatever men have thought or done,
And travel the great orb of knowledge round.
But oh! how most unwelcome the constraint,
How harsh the summons bidding us to pause,
And for a season turn from our high toils,
From that serener atmosphere come down,
And grow perforce acquainted with the woe,
The strife, the discord of the actual world,
And all the ignoble work beneath the sun.’

These were my thoughts and words the other day,
And such they oftentimes have been before,
When I have turned reluctantly, and left
The pleasant labours I had found at home,
For ruder and less grateful tasks abroad,
Which duty would not suffer to put by.
But other feelings occupied my heart,
And other words found utterance from my lips,
When that day's work was finished, and my feet
Again turned homeward—alteration strange
Of feeling, with a better humbler mind.
For I was thankful now, and not alone
That I had been brought under the blue sky,
With winds of heaven to blow upon my cheeks,
And flowers of earth to smile about my feet,
And birds of air to sing within my ears—
Though that were something, something to exchange
Continuous study in a lonely room
For the sweet face of nature, sights and sounds
Of earth and air, restoring influences
Of power to cheer;—yet not for this alone,
Nor for this chiefly; but that thus I was
Compelled, as by a gentle violence,
Not in the pages of dead books alone,
Nor merely in the fair page nature shows,
But in the living page of human life
To look and learn—not merely left to spin
Fine webs and woofs around me like the worm,
Till in mine own coil I had hid myself,
And quite shut out the light of common day,
And common air by which men breathe and live—
That being in a world of sin and woe,
Of woe that might in some part be assuaged,
Of sin that might be lessened in some part,
Heaven in its mercy did not suffer me
To live and dwell wholly apart from these;
Knowing no more of them than men who live
At home in ease, by hearsay know of lands
Which the bold pilgrim has with his own eyes
Seen, with his own feet trod: and now I felt,
It was brought home unto my heart of hearts,
That doom is none more pitiable than his,
Who has created a heart-solitude,
Raised a partition wall to separate
Between himself and any of his kind;
There was no doom more pitiable than his,
Who at safe distance hears life's stormy waves,
Which break for ever on a rugged shore,
In which are shipwrecked mariners, for their lives
Contending some, some momently sucked up,
But as a gentle murmur afar off
To soothe his sleep, and lull him in his dreams:
Who, while he boasts he has been building up
A palace for himself, in sooth has reared
What shall be first his prison, then his tomb.

And now how different my request and prayer:
Give me, I said, give me a heart that beats
In all its pulses with the common heart
Of humankind, which the same things make glad,
The same make sorry; give me grace enough
Even in their first beginnings to detect
Endeavours which the proud heart still is making
To cut itself from off the common root,
To set itself upon a private base,
To have wherein to glory of its own,
Beside the common glory of the kind;
Each such attempt in all its hateful pride
And meanness, give me to detect and loathe,—
A man, and claiming fellowship with men.
I said—Oh! lead me oftentimes to huts
Where poor men lie, that I may learn the stuff
Which life is made of, its true joys and griefs,
What things are daily bringing grief or joy
Unto the hearts of millions of my race.
Oh! lead me oft to huts where poor men lie,
Not in the hope fantastical to find
That Innocence, from palaces exiled,
Has taken refuge under sordid roofs;
But knowing what of evil, what of good
Is to be looked for there, and with firm faith,
That for the eye made wise by charity,
Much good will there as everywhere be found—
Patience by lengthened suffering not outworn,
Promptness to aid in one another's needs,
With self-denial, yea, heroic acts,
The more heroic, as not knowing themselves
For such at all,—and there not seldom too
Such thankfulness for small things, such content
Under the absence of most earthly good,
As might rebuke the pining discontent
That haunts too often rich men's palaces.
These schools of wisdom make me to frequent,
That I may learn what is not learned elsewhere;
What is not to be learned by haunting long
The shady spaces of philosophy;
Lore which even he will fail of, who beside
The streams of heavenly wisdom evermore
Is lingering, if he have no purpose there,
Except to gather for his own delight
The bright and beauteous flowers which there are found.