Pensive, at eve, on the hard world I mused,
And my poor heart was sad: so at the Moon
I gazed–and sighed, and sighed–for, ah! how soon
Eve saddens into night! Mine eyes perused,
With tearful vacancy, the dampy grass,
That wept and glitter’d in the paly ray,
And I did pause me on my lonely way,
And mused me on the wretched ones, who pass
O’er the black heath of Sorrow. But, alas!
Most of myself I thought: when it befell,
That the sooth Spirit of the breezy wood
Breath’d in mine ear–‘All this is very well;
But much of one thing is for no thing good.’
Ah! my poor heart’s inexplicable swell!