Droop’st thou and fail’st? but these have never tired;

winds of the region, free, they shine and sing,

unurged, unguerdon’d: hast thou then desired

to be with them and trail’st a useless wing?

Self-pity hath thee in her clinging damp,

and makes a siren-music of thy woes

to lure thy feet into that reptile-swamp

where rancour’s muddy stream, festering, throes.

Cunning is her condolence with the snarl

of canker’d memory or the soft tear

for vanisht sweetness: come, an honest parle,

air for thy ailment! make these wrongs appear.

Ay, this hath spat at thee, and that hath flung

his native mud, and that with bilious guile

most plausible — what! hast thou loved and sung

as was in thee, and need’st do else than smile?

(Heed not that subtle demon that would prompt

to measure thee by them; so humbled yet

thou art not, nor so beggar’d thine accompt:

what thou art, that thou hast, and know’st thy debt.)

And in thy house of love the venom’d dart

was thrust within thy side — Even so! must then

the gather’d ripeness of thy mind and heart

be turn’d to flies? that is no way for men.

Who said, and rid himself of usual awe,

I prize not man, save as his metal rings

of god or hero? Hast thou made a law,

live by thy law: ‘tis carrion hath no wings.

1907