19.

"What? All I am, was, and might be,

All, books taught, art brought, life's whole strife, Painful results since precious, just

Were fitly exchanged in wise disgust

For two cheeks freshened by youth and sea?

20.

"All for a nosegay!—what came first;

With fields on flower, untried each side;

I rally, need my books and men,

And find a nosegay: drop it, then,

No match yet made for best or worst!'"

21.

That ended me. You judged the porch
We left by, Norman; took our look
At sea and sky; wondered so few

Find out the place for air and view;
Remarked the sun began to scorch;

22.

Descended, soon regained the Baths,

And then, good-bye! Years ten since then:

Ten years! We meet: you tell me, now,
By a window-seat for that cliff-brow,
On carpet-stripes for those sand-paths.

23.

Now I may speak: you fool, for all

Your lore! WHO made things plain in vain ? What was the sea for? What, the gray,

Sad church, that solitary day,

Crosses and graves and swallows' call?

24.

Was there naught better than to enjoy?

No feat which, done, would make time break, And let us pent-up creatures through

Into eternity, our due?

No forcing earth teach Heaven's employ?

25.

No wise beginning, here and now,

What cannot grow complete (earth's feat)
And Heaven must finish, there and then?
No tasting earth's true food for men,
Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?

26.

No grasping at love, gaining à share

O' the sole spark from God's life at strife

With death, so, sure of range above

The limits here? For us and love,

Failure; but, when God fails, despair.

27.

This you call wisdom? Thus you add
Good unto good again, in vain?

You loved, with body worn and weak;
I loved, with faculties to seek:

Were both loves worthless since ill-clad?

28.

Let the mere starfish in his vault

Crawl in a wash of weed, indeed, Rose-jacynth to the finger-tips:

He, whole in body and soul, outstrips Man, found with either in default.

29.

But what's whole, can increase no more,

Is dwarfed and dies, since here's its sphere. The Devil laughed at you in his sleeve!

You knew not? That, I well believe; Or you had saved two souls: nay, four.

30.

For Stephanie sprained last night her wrist, Ancle, or something. "Pooh!" cry you? At any rate she danced, all say,

Vilely: her vogue has had its day.

Here comes my husband from his whist.

TOO LATE.