O tame heart, and why are you weary and cannot rest?

here is the hearth with its glow and the roof that forbids
the rain,

a swept and a garnish’d quiet, a peace: and were you not
fain

to be gather’d in dusk and comfort and barter away the
rest?

And is your dream now of riding away from a stricken
field

on a lost and baleful eve, when the world went out in rain,

one of some few that rode evermore by the bridle-rein

of a great beloved chief, with high heart never to yield?

Was that you? and you ween you are back in your life of
old

when you dealt as your pride allow’d and reck’d not of other
rein?

Nay, tame heart, be not idle: it is but the ancient rain

that minds you of manhood forgone and the perilous joy
of the bold.