Eye, to which all order festers, all things here

are out of joint:

Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping

nigher,

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly. dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing

purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his

youthful joys,

Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger

on the shore,

And the individual withers, and the world is more

and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,

Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a

moulder'd string?

I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so

slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's

pleasure, woman's pain

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a

shallower brain :

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto

wine

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah,

for some retreat

Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil

starr'd ;—

I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's

ward.

Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far

away,

On from island unto island at the gateways of the

day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and

happy skies,

Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never comes the trader, never floats an European

flag,

Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the

trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres

of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in

this march of mind,

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts

that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space;

I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,

Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable

books