You ask, “What man could ever yet,
  So foolish, all his fears forget?”
  Then know, my friend, that man are you—­
  And see the meaning plain to view. 
  The dragon in the pool beneath
  Sets forth the yawning jaws of death;
  The beast from which you helpless flee
  Is life and all its misery. 
  There you must hang ’twixt life and death
  While in this world you draw your breath. 
  The mice, whose pitiless gnawing teeth
  Will let you to the pool beneath
  Fall down, a hopeless castaway,
  Are but the change of night and day. 
  The black one gnaws concealed from sight
  Till comes again the morning light;
  From dawn until the eve is gray,
  Ceaseless the white one gnaws away. 
  And, ’midst this dreadful choice of ills,
  Pleasure of sense your spirit fills
  Till you forget the terrors grim
  That wait to tear you limb from limb,
  The gnawing mice of day and night,
  And pay no heed to aught in sight
  Except to fill your mouth with fruit
  That in the grave-clefts has its root.

* * * * *

  EVENING SONG[56] (1823)

  I stood on the mountain summit,
    At the hour when the sun did set;
  I mark’d how it hung o’er the woodland
    The evening’s golden net.

  And, with the dew descending,
    A peace on the earth there fell—­
  And nature lay hushed in quiet,
    At the voice of the evening bell.

  I said, “O heart, consider
    What silence all things keep,
  And with each child of the meadow
    Prepare thyself to sleep!

  “For every flower is closing
    In silence its little eye;
  And every wave in the brooklet
    More softly murmureth by.

  “The weary caterpillar
    Hath nestled beneath the weeds;
  All wet with dew now slumbers
    The dragon-fly in the reeds.

  “The golden beetle hath laid him
    In a rose-leaf cradle to rock;
  Now went to their nightly shelter
    The shepherd and his flock.

  “The lark from on high is seeking
    In the moistened grass her nest;
  The hart and the hind have laid them
    In their woodland haunt to rest.

  “And whoso owneth a cottage
    To slumber hath laid him down;
  And he that roams among strangers
    In dreams shall behold his own.”

  And now doth a yearning seize me,
    At this hour of peace and love,
  That I cannot reach the dwelling,
    The home that is mine, above.

* * * * *

  CHIDHER[57] (1824)

  Chidher, the ever youthful, told: 
    I passed a city, bright to see;
  A man was culling fruits of gold,
    I asked him how old this town might be. 
  He answered, culling as before
  “This town stood ever in days of yore,
  And will stand on forevermore!”
    Five hundred years from yonder day
    I passed again the selfsame way,