Upon their easy road I tripped and fell,
And still I sickened of the wholesome fare
On which they nourished well.

I was a stranger in that company,
A Galilean whom his speech bewrayed,
And when they lifted up their songs of glee,
My voice sad discord made.

Peace for mine own self I could never find,
And still my presence marred the general peace,
And when I parted, leaving them behind,
They felt, and I, release.

So will I follow now my spirit's bent,
Not scorning those who walk the beaten track,
Yet not despising mine own banishment,
Nor often looking back.

Their way is best for them, but mine for me.
And there is comfort for my lonely heart,
To think perhaps our journeys' ends may be
Not very far apart.

TO ALFRED TENNYSON--1883

Familiar with thy melody,
We go debating of its power,
As churls, who hear it hour by hour,
Contemn the skylark's minstrelsy--

As shepherds on a Highland lea
Think lightly of the heather flower
Which makes the moorland's purple dower,
As far away as eye can see.

Let churl or shepherd change his sky,
And labour in the city dark,
Where there is neither air nor room--
How often will the exile sigh
To hear again the unwearied lark,
And see the heather's lavish bloom!

ICHABOD

Gone is the glory from the hills,
The autumn sunshine from the mere,
Which mourns for the declining year
In all her tributary rills.

A sense of change obscurely chills
The misty twilight atmosphere,
In which familiar things appear
Like alien ghosts, foreboding ills.

The twilight hour a month ago
Was full of pleasant warmth and ease,
The pearl of all the twenty-four.
Erelong the winter gales shall blow,
Erelong the winter frosts shall freeze--
And oh, that it were June once more!

AT A HIGH CEREMONY

Not the proudest damsel here
Looks so well as doth my dear.
All the borrowed light of dress
Outshining not her loveliness,

A loveliness not born of art,
But growing outwards from her heart,
Illuminating all her face,
And filling all her form with grace.

Said I, of dress the borrowed light
Could rival not her beauty bright?
Yet, looking round, 'tis truth to tell,
No damsel here is dressed so well.

Only in them the dress one sees,
Because more greatly it doth please
Than any other charm that's theirs,
Than all their manners, all their airs.

But