He blindly flings an aimless scoff.

Not theirs the blame who thus disown
The wealth they see not as they walk,
Nor mingle in their household talk
What all to them is all unknown.

Mine be the greater joys that tend
To give me what I cannot give,
And what in living makes me live,
And what _I_ best can comprehend.

And though, amid the daily dust
Of moving men, I move a moat
Within the sunbeam where we float,
With mutual needs and mutual trust,--

Though outward unto outward shows
The kindred claims of sympathy,
And hand to hand and eye to eye
The generous meed of Faith bestows,--

Yet am I conscious that I bear
A something in me dumb and blind
To all the rest of human kind,
And which but one can partly share.

Though in the turbulent stream of change,
The pressing wants of flesh and sense
Conceal my inward opulence,
And clog the life that else would range;

Yet am I conscious that below
The turbid tide, as through the straits
Of Bab-el-Mandeb's tearful gates,
Strong counter currents constant flow.

Nor do I love that man the less,
Because, in our companionship
There lieth behind the eye and lip,
That something, neither can express.

For inasmuch as mortal love,
Being mortal, cannot fill our need,
I feel the Goodness that can feed
With droppings from the feast above.

Whereby, in Heaven's perfected plan,
Which saves from spoil of worldly flaw,
I read the inevitable law
Of compensation unto man.

Thus, though I grope in darkest night,
Of what men call a world of ills,
The closer concentration fills
My inmost with benignant light.

And though I sit in dull routine
Schooled to the scholarship of books,
My truant spirit outward looks
And Fancy fills the village green!

Yet not in pride, oh, understand,
Not pride of merit do I boast,
Of that, which at its uttermost,
Is of me part, like eye or hand.

In awe, not pride, doth Fancy wield
The sceptre of her gorgeous realm,
Whose revelations overwhelm
With sense of greatness unrevealed.

Thus, whatsoever good is gained
In fantasies of fresh delights,
But wings us to diviner flights
Unto the ever unattained.

Nor need I more than this to show
All proof of that astounding bliss,
Which from