Thou hast not lived, deg. why should’st thou perish, so? deg.151
  Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire deg.; deg.152
    Else wert thou long since number’d with the dead! 
  Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! 
    The generations of thy peers are fled, 155
      And we ourselves shall go;
  But thou possessest an immortal lot,
    And we imagine thee exempt from age
    And living as thou liv’st on Glanvil’s page,
  Because thou hadst—­what we, alas! have not. deg. deg.160

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers
  Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
    Firm to their mark, not spent on other things;
  Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
    Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings deg.. deg.165
      O life unlike to ours! 
  Who fluctuate idly without term or scope,
    Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives,
    And each half lives a hundred different lives;
  Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. deg. deg.170

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we,
  Light half-believers of our casual creeds,
    Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will’d,
  Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds,
    Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill’d; 175
      For whom each year we see
  Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new;
    Who hesitate and falter life away,
    And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day—­
  Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too deg. deg.180

Yes, we await it!—­but it still delays,
  And then we suffer! and amongst us one,
    Who most has suffer’d, takes dejectedly
  His seat upon the intellectual throne;
    And all his store of sad experience he 185
      Lays bare of wretched days;
  Tells us his misery’s birth and growth and signs,
    And how the dying spark of hope was fed,
    And how the breast was soothed, and how the head,
  And all his hourly varied anodynes. deg. deg.190

This for our wisest! and we others pine,
  And wish the long unhappy dream would end,
    And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear;
  With close-lipp’d patience for our only friend,
    Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair—­ 195
      But none has hope like thine! 
  Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray,
    Roaming the country-side, a truant boy,
    Nursing thy project in unclouded joy,
  And every doubt long blown by time away. 200