I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

Nor at all can tell Whether I mean this day to end myself, Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, That men like soldiers may not quit the post Allotted by the Gods.

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.

If Nature put not forth her power About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?

Be near me when my light is low... And all the wheels of being slow.

Name and fame! to fly sublime Through the courts, the camps, the schools Is to be the ball of Time, Bandied in the hands of fools.

Once in a golden hour, I cast to earth a seed, And up there grew a flower, That others called a weed.