You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part in life's dull

scene,

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

V.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot
With various flowers, and every one still

said,

"She loves me - loves me not."

And if this meant a vision long since fled —

If it meant fortune, fame, or peace

If it meant, but I dread

of thought

To speak what you may know too

well:

Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI.

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home; No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,

When it no more would roam;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest.

Doubtless there is a place of

peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will

cease.

VII.

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved

His heart with words,

judgment bade

but what his

Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know, Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

Love, Hope, Desire, and

Fear

ND many there were hurt by that strong boy,

His name, they said, was Pleasure, And near him stood, glorious

beyond measure,

Four Ladies who possess all empery

In earth and air and sea,

Nothing that lives from their award is free.

Their names will I declare to thee,
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,

And they the regents are

Of the four elements that frame the heart,

And each diversely exercised her art

By force or circumstance or sleight
prove her dreadful might

Το

Upon that poor domain.

Desire presented her [false] glass, and then
The spirit dwelling there

Was spellbound to embrace what seemed so fair
Within that magic mirror,

And dazed by that bright error,

It would have scorned the [shafts] of the

avenger,

And death, and penitence, and danger,
Had not then silent Fear

Touched with her palsying spear,

So that as if a frozen torrent

The blood was curdled in its current;

It dared not speak, even in look or motion,

But chained within itself its proud devotion. Between Desire and Fear thou wert

A wretched thing, poor heart!

Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast,
Wild bird for that weak nest.

Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,
And from the very wound of tender thought
Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes
Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,

Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow. Then Hope approached, she who can borrow

For poor to-day, from rich to-morrow,
And Fear withdrew, as night when day
Descends upon the orient ray,
And after long and vain endurance
poor heart woke to her assurance.

The

- At one birth these four were born
With the world's forgotten morn,
And from Pleasure still they hold
All its circles, as of old.

When, as summer lures the swallow,
Pleasure lures the heart to follow-

O weak heart of little wit!

The fair hand that wounded it,
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx's lair,

Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear

Ever will be near.