At forty-five, then, he writes thus concerning his blindness: 

  When I consider how my life is spent
  Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
  And that one talent, which is death to hide,
  Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
  To serve therewith my Maker, and present
  My true account, lest he, returning, chide—­
  “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
  I fondly ask.  But Patience, to prevent foolishly.
  That murmur, soon replies:  “God doth not need
  Either man’s work or his own gifts:  who best
  Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best:  his state
  Is kingly:  thousands at his bidding speed,
  And post o’er land and ocean without rest: 
  They also serve who only stand and wait.”

That is, “stand and wait, ready to go when they are called.”  Everybody knows the sonnet, but how could I omit it?  Both sonnets will grow more and more luminous as they are regarded.

The following I incline to think the finest of his short poems, certainly the grandest of them.  It is a little ode, written to be set on a clock-case.

  ON TIME.

  Fly, envious Time, till thou run out thy race. 
  Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours,
  Whose speed is but the heavy plummet’s pace,
  And glut thyself with what thy womb devours—­
  Which is no more than what is false and vain,
  And merely mortal dross: 
  So little is our loss! 
  So little is thy gain! 
  For whenas each thing bad thou hast entombed,
  And last of all thy greedy self consumed,
  Then long eternity shall greet our bliss
  With an individual kiss; that cannot be divided—­
  And joy shall overtake us as a flood; [eternal.
  When everything that is sincerely good,
  And perfectly divine
  With truth and peace and love, shall ever shine
  About the supreme throne
  Of him to whose happy-making sight alone
  When once our heavenly-guided soul shall climb,
  Then, all this earthy grossness quit,
  Attired with stars, we shall for ever sit
  Triumphing over Death and Chance and thee, O Time.

The next I give is likewise an ode—­a more beautiful one.  Observe in both the fine effect of the short lines, essential to the nature of the ode, being that which gives its solemnity the character yet of a song, or rather, perhaps, of a chant.

In this he calls upon Voice and Verse to rouse and raise our imagination until we hear the choral song of heaven, and hearing become able to sing in tuneful response.

  AT A SOLEMN MUSIC.

  Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven’s joy
  Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
  Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ—­
  Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce—­
  And to our high-raised phantasy present