'Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay! Shuddering, they drew her garments off--and found 10 A robe of sackcloth° next the smooth, white skin. °11
Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay, Radiant, adorn'd outside; a hidden ground Of thought and of austerity within.
_Even in a palace, life may be led well!_ So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius.° But the stifling den °3 Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell, 5 And drudge under some foolish° master's ken.° °6 Who rates° us if we peer outside our pen-- °7 Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?
_Even in a palace!_ On his truth sincere, Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came; 10 And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win, I'll stop, and say: "There were no succour here! The aids to noble life are all within."
'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green,° °2 And the pale weaver, through his windows seen In Spitalfields,° look'd thrice dispirited. °4
I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 5 "Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?"-- "Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been, Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread."_
O human soul! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light, 10 Above the howling senses' ebb and flow,
To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.
Crouch'd on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square,° °1 A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. A babe was in her arms, and at her side A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare.
Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, 5 Pass'd opposite; she touch'd her girl, who hied Across and begg'd, and came back satisfied. The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.
Thought I: "Above her state this spirit towers; She will not ask of aliens but of friends, 10 Of sharers in a common human fate.
"She turns from that cold succour, which attends The unknown little from the unknowing great, And points us to a better time than ours."
Goethe in Weimar sleeps,° and Greece, °1 Long since, saw Byron's° struggle cease. °2 But one such death remain'd to come; The last poetic voice is dumb-- We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. 5