RESIGNATION.

TO FAUSTA.

To die be given us, or attain ! Fierce work it were, to do again. So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray'd At burning noon: so warriors said, Scarf'd with the cross, who watch'd the miles Of dust that wreath'd their struggling files Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows Round Alpine summits eddying rose, The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun, Crouch'd on his saddle, when the sun Went lurid down o'er flooded plains Through which the groaning Danube strains To the drear Euxine: so pray all, Whom labors, self-ordain'd, enthrall; Because they to themselves propose On this side the all-common close A goal which, gain'd, may give repose.

So pray they and to stand again

:

Where they stood once, to them were pain; Pain to thread back and to renew

Past straits, and currents long-steer'd through.

But milder natures, and more free;
Whom an unblam'd serenity

Hath freed from passions, and the state
Of struggle these necessitate;
Whom schooling of the stubborn mind
Hath made, or birth hath found, resign'd;
These mourn not, that their goings pay
Obedience to the passing day:

These claim not every laughing Hour
For handmaid to their striding power;
Each in her turn, with torch uprear'd,
To await their march: and when appear'd,
Through the cold gloom, with measur'd race,
To usher for a destin'd space,

(Her own sweet errands all foregone)

The too imperious Traveller on.

These, Fausta, ask not this: nor thou,

Time's chafing prisoner, ask it now.

We left, just ten years since, you say,

That wayside inn we left to-day:
Our jovial host, as forth we fare,
Shouts greeting from his easy chair;

High on a bank our leader stands,

Reviews and ranks his motley bands;
Makes clear our goal to every eye,
The valley's western boundary.

A gate swings to our tide hath flow'd
Already from the silent road.
The valley pastures one by one,
Are threaded, quiet in the sun;

And now beyond the rude stone bridge
Slopes gracious up the western ridge.
Its woody border, and the last
Of its dark upland farms is past;
Cool farms, with open-lying stores,
Under their burnish'd sycamores:

All past and through the trees we glide
Emerging on the green hill-side.
There climbing hangs, a far-seen sign,
Our wavering, many-color'd line;
There winds, upstreaming slowly still
Over the summit of the hill.
And now, in front, behold outspread
Those upper regions we must tread;
Mild hollows, and clear heathy swells,
The cheerful silence of the fells.
Some two hours' march, with serious air,
Through the deep noontide heats we fare:
The red-grouse, springing at our sound,
Skims, now and then, the shining ground;
No life, save his and ours, intrudes
Upon these breathless solitudes.

O joy! again the farms appear;

Cool shade is there, and rustic cheer:

There springs the brook will guide us down, Bright comrade, to the noisy town.

Lingering, we follow down: we gain

The town, the highway, and the plain,
And many a mile of dusty way,
Parch'd and road-worn, we made that day;
But, Fausta, I remember well

That, as the balmy darkness fell,

We bath'd our hands, with speechless glee, That night, in the wide-glimmering Sea.

Once more we tread this self-same road, Fausta, which ten years since we trod: Alone we tread it, you and I;

Ghosts of that boisterous company.

Here, where the brook shines, near its head,
In its clear, shallow, turf-fring'd bed;
Here, whence the eye first sees, far down,
Capp'd with faint smoke, the noisy town;
Here sit we, and again unroll,
Though slowly, the familiar whole.
The solemn wastes of heathy hill
Sleep in the July sunshine still :
The self-same shadows now, as then,
Play through this grassy upland glen :
The loose dark stones on the green way
Lie strewn, it seems, where then they lay:

On this mild bank above the stream,

(You crush them) the blue gentians gleam. Still this wild brook, the rushes cool,

The sailing foam, the shining pool.

These are not chang'd; and we, you say,
Are scarce more chang'd, in truth, than they.

The Gipsies, whom we met below, They too have long roam'd to and fro. They ramble, leaving, where they pass, Their fragments on the cumber'd grass. And often to some kindly place

Chance guides the migratory race

Where, though long wanderings intervene,
They recognize a former scene.

The dingy tents are pitch'd: the fires
Give to the wind their wavering spires;
In dark knots crouch round the wild flame
Their children, as when first they came;
They see their shackled beasts again
Move, browsing, up the gray-wall'd lane.
Signs are not wanting, which might raise
The ghosts in them of former days:
Signs are not wanting, if they would;
Suggestions to disquietude.

For them, for all, Time's busy touch,
While it mends little, troubles much :
Their joints grow stiffer; but the year
Runs his old round of dubious cheer: