To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control? Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll Scrawled over on some boyish holiday With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole. Surely there was a time I might have trod The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God. Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance— And must I lose a soul's inheritance?