With earthly tools their ancient childlike dream
Concerning heavenly fruit and living bowers,
And glad full-throated birds that sing up there
Among the branches of the tree of life—­
Through all the ordered forest of the shafts,
Shooting on high to enter into light,
That swam aloft,—­he took his silent way,
And in the southern transept sat him down,
Covered his face, and thought. 
                                 He said, “No pain,
No passion, and no aching, heart o’ mine,
Doth stir within thee.  Oh!  I would there did: 
Thou art so dull, so tired.  I have lost
I know not what.  I see the heavens as lead: 
They tend no whither.  Ah! the world is bared
Of her enchantment now:  she is but earth
And water.  And, though much hath passed away,
There may be more to go.  I may forget
The joy and fear that have been:  there may live
No more for me the fervency of hope
Nor the arrest of wonder.

“Once I said,
’Content will wait on work, though work appear
Unfruitful.’  Now I say, ’Where is the good? 
What is the good?  A lamp when it is lit
Must needs give light; but I am like a man
Holding his lamp in some deserted place
Where no foot passeth.  Must I trim my lamp,
And ever painfully toil to keep it bright,
When use for it is none?  I must; I will. 
Though God withhold my wages, I must work,
And watch the bringing of my work to nought,—­
Weed in the vineyard through the heat o’ the day,
And, overtasked, behold the weedy place
Grow ranker yet in spite of me.

“Oh! yet
My meditated words are trodden down
Like a little wayside grass.  Castaway shells,
Lifted and tossed aside by a plunging wave,
Have no more force against it than have I
Against the sweeping, weltering wave of life,
That, lifting and dislodging me, drives on,
And notes not mine endeavor.”

Afterward,
He added more words like to these; to wit,
That it was hard to see the world so sad: 
He would that it were happier.  It was hard
To see the blameless overborne; and hard
To know that God, who loves the world, should yet
Let it lie down in sorrow, when a smile
From him would make it laugh and sing,—­a word
From him transform it to a heaven.  He said,
Moreover, “When will this be done?  My life
Hath not yet reached the noon, and I am tired;
And oh! it may be that, uncomforted
By foolish hope of doing good and vain
Conceit of being useful, I may live,
And it may be my duty to go on
Working for years and years, for years and years.”

But, while the words were uttered, in his heart
There dawned a vague alarm.  He was aware
That somewhat touched him, and he lifted up
His face.  “I am alone,” the curate said,—­
“I think I am alone.  What is it, then? 
I am ashamed!  My raiment is not clean. 
My lips,—­I am afraid they are not clean.