 | Three Hundred Sonnets |  |
176
FALSE PATIENCE.
But this dead level,—Patience; what a changeFrom Passion's craggy glens and crested heights!
What a dull ebb,—stagnation sad and strange
From Feeling's tide of boundless ocean range
With flooding hopes and terrors and delights!
O Patience,—yet thou hast a baser name
Cut in the flint of man's enduring heart,—
Callous Contempt alike of scorn and fame,
Self, well resigned to play the Stoic part,
Or truer, as an Epicure, to stand
Balancing present comforts in the hand
With cold philosophy: see, that thou disown
This evil fruit of worldly trouble sown
Which Man calls Patience, God, the heart of stone.
| Three Hundred Sonnets | |