POEMS
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ÉLAS! TO _drift with every passion till my soul__Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play_,_Is it for this that I have given away__Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control_?_Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll__Scrawled over on some boyish holiday__With idle songs for pipe and virelay_,_Which do but mar the secret of the whole_._Surely there was a time I might have trod__The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance__Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God_:_Is that time dead_? _lo_! _with a little rod__I did but touch the honey of romance_—_And must I lose a soul’s inheritance_?
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