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Robert Laurence Binyon - Disappointment
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And were they but for this, those passionate schemes
 Of joy, that I have nursed? indeed for this
 That longings, day and night, have filled my dreams?
 Now it has come, the hour of bliss,
 How different it seems!

 So thought I bitterly: but on my bed
 As I lay lone and restless, in my ear,
 Falling from some far place of peace o`erhead
 Through the still dark, I seemed to hear
 These accents softly shed:

 ``Wouldst thou then, child, from this invading pain
 Find refuge, and relax thy suffering will
 In tears? To peace wouldst thou indeed attain?
 Remember all thy courage; still
 True to thyself remain!

 ``What is it to thee, if some wished delight.
 That from the future beckoned thee, at last
 Comes changed, its former glory faded quite?
 Fly the perfidious Hours; keep fast
 Within, the springs of light!

 ``What is it to thee, if in some dear mind
 Another is remembered, more than thou?
 Quench that poor envy; let no gazer find
 Aught in thine acts or on thy brow
 But what is sweet and kind!

 ``For how shall that pure spirit, whom vain things flee,
 Whom passion`s ebbs and floods delight not, Love
 The consolation of the world, if he
 Out of his course so lightly move,
 Immortal and eternal be?

 ``Take courage! peace at last and joy attend
 The true--fixt heart that mocks Time`s envious power;
 The heart that, tender even to the end,
 Exacts not joy from any hour,
 Nor love from any friend.``

 Alas! how oft I have wished that voice had spared
 Its counsel stern, nor pointed me through tears
 My path! How oft, to feet stumbling and scarred,
 That path impossible appears;
 Which yet is only hard.
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