Too much wit makes the world rotten.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depths of some devine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone: And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky.

Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed.

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith; She reels not at the storm of warring words; She brightens at the clash of "Yes" and "No"; She sees the best that glimmers through the worst; She feels the sun is hid for the night; She spies the summer through the winter bud; She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls; She hears the lark within the songless egg; She finds the fountain where they wailed "Mirage!"

Where love could walk with banish'd Hope no more.

Shall the hag Evil die with the child of Good, Or propagate again her loathèd kind, Thronging the cells of the diseased mind, Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood, Though hourly pastured on the salient blood?