Poems (Hardy)/A character
A CHARACTER
"Different from himself."—Plutarch.
YEA, it is true, my soul, yet hard to say:
His outlook has no mountain nor no sky;
Ships of his mart are ever sailing by
On some mean errand, though he knows the way
To lands Elysian. You could name no day
Of his not stained with lowest self, nor pry
Into his thoughts and not appallèd fly
The downward drawing of his soul of clay.
Yet moods there are of his that burn with gleams
Of archangelic fire,—that re-illume and stir
His coarsely-vestured soul, till, as once it shone,
Illuminate it shines; to doubt him seems
The caviling of an envious mind, a slur
For which devoted love could scarce atone.
His outlook has no mountain nor no sky;
Ships of his mart are ever sailing by
On some mean errand, though he knows the way
To lands Elysian. You could name no day
Of his not stained with lowest self, nor pry
Into his thoughts and not appallèd fly
The downward drawing of his soul of clay.
Yet moods there are of his that burn with gleams
Of archangelic fire,—that re-illume and stir
His coarsely-vestured soul, till, as once it shone,
Illuminate it shines; to doubt him seems
The caviling of an envious mind, a slur
For which devoted love could scarce atone.