THE TWO MEN
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HERE were two youths of equal age,Wit, station, strength, and parentage;They studied at the selfsame schools,And shaped their thoughts by common rules. One pondered on the life of man,His hopes, his ending, and beganTo rate the Market’s sordid warAs something scarce worth living for. “I’ll brace to higher aims,” said he,“I’ll further Truth and Purity;Thereby to mend the mortal lotAnd sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not, “Winning their hearts, my kind will giveEnough that I may lowly live,And house my Love in some dim dell,For pleasing them and theirs so well.” Idly attired, with features wan,In secret swift he laboured on:Such press of power had brought much goldApplied to things of meaner mould. Sometimes he wished his aims had beenTo gather gains like other men;Then thanked his God he’d traced his trackToo far for wish to drag him back. He lookèd from his loft one dayTo where his slighted garden lay;Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn,And every flower was starved and gone. He fainted in his heart, whereonHe rose, and sought his plighted one,Resolved to loose her bond withal,Lest she should perish in his fall. He met her with a careless air,As though he’d ceased to find her fair,And said: “True love is dust to me;I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!” (That she might scorn him was he fain,To put her sooner out of pain;For incensed love breathes quick and dies,When famished love a-lingering lies.) Once done, his soul was so betossed,It found no more the force it lost:Hope was his only drink and food,And hope extinct, decay ensued. And, living long so closely penned,He had not kept a single friend;He dwindled thin as phantoms be,And drooped to death in poverty . . . Meantime his schoolmate had gone outTo join the fortune-finding rout;He liked the winnings of the mart,But wearied of the working part. He turned to seek a privy lair,Neglecting note of garb and hair,And day by day reclined and thoughtHow he might live by doing nought. “I plan a valued scheme,” he saidTo some. “But lend me of your bread,And when the vast result looms nigh,In profit you shall stand as I.” Yet they took counsel to restrainTheir kindness till they saw the gain;And, since his substance now had run,He rose to do what might be done. He went unto his Love by night,And said: “My Love, I faint in fight:Deserving as thou dost a crown,My cares shall never drag thee down.” (He had descried a maid whose lineWould hand her on much corn and wine,And held her far in worth aboveOne who could only pray and love.) But this Fair read him; whence he failedTo do the deed so blithely hailed;He saw his projects wholly marred,And gloom and want oppressed him hard; Till, living to so mean an end,Whereby he’d lost his every friend,He perished in a pauper sty,His mate the dying pauper nigh. And moralists, reflecting, said,As “dust to dust” in burial readWas echoed from each coffin-lid,“These men were like in all they did.” 1866.
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