e drinks not; he lets me 135
praise life,
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

XII

Then fancies grew rife
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep
Fed in silence--above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill 140
and the sky;
And I laughed--"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my
flocks,
Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage 145
that gains,
And the prudence that keeps what men strive for." And now these old
trains
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus--

XIII

"Yea, my King,"
I began--"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by 150
brute:
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears
fruit.
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree--how its stem trembled
first
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler; then safely outburst
The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn
Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect; yet more was 155
to learn,
E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we
slight,
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and
branch
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall
stanch
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such 160
wine.
Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy
More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy.
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast
done
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e'en as the