THE GOLDEN YEAR "Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 183 "But we grow old. Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon "Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answer'd James "Ah, folly! for it lies so far away, Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'Tis like the second world to us that live; 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,-James,-you know him,-old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O'erflourish'd with the hoary clematis : Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back, The more fools they, we forward: dreamers both: - You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, That unto him who works, and feels he works, He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. T little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved |