| |
VI WE lack, yet cannot fix upon the lack: | |
| Not this, nor that; yet somewhat, certainly. | |
| We see the things we do not yearn to see | |
| Around us: and what see we glancing back? | |
| Lost hopes that leave our hearts upon the rack, | 5 |
| Hopes that were never ours yet seem’d to be, | |
| For which we steer’d on life’s salt stormy sea | |
| Braving the sunstroke and the frozen pack. | |
| If thus to look behind is all in vain, | |
| And all in vain to look to left or right, | 10 |
| Why face we not our future once again, | |
| Launching with hardier hearts across the main, | |
| Straining dim eyes to catch the invisible sight, | |
| And strong to bear ourselves in patient pain? | |
| |
IX STAR Sirius and the Pole Star dwell afar | 15 |
| Beyond the drawings each of other’s strength: | |
| One blazes through the brief bright summer’s length | |
| Lavishing life-heat from a flaming car; | |
| While one unchangeable upon a throne | |
| Broods o’er the frozen heart of earth alone, | 20 |
| Content to reign the bright particular star | |
| Of some who wander or of some who groan. | |
| They own no drawings each of other’s strength, | |
| Nor vibrate in a visible sympathy, | |
| Nor veer along their courses each toward | 25 |
| Yet are their orbits pitch’d in harmony | |
| Of one dear heaven, across whose depth and length | |
| Mayhap they talk together without speech. | |
| |
