Between me and my rest, nor can I make
  Those aged visitors of sorrow dumb. 
  Oh, yet awhile, my feeble soul, awake! 
  Nor wander back with sullen steps again;
  For neither pleasant pastime canst thou take
  In such a journey, nor endure the pain. 
  The phantoms of the past are dead for thee;
  So let them ever uninvoked remain,
  And be thou calm, till death shall set thee free. 
  Thy flowers of hope expanded long ago,
  Long since their blossoms withered on the tree: 
  No second spring can come to make them blow,
  But in the silent winter of the grave
  They lie with blighted love and buried woe.

  I did not waste the gifts which nature gave,
  Nor slothful lay in the Circean bower;
  Nor did I yield myself the willing slave
  Of lust for pride, for riches, or for power. 
  No! in my heart a nobler spirit dwelt;
  For constant was my faith in manhood’s dower;
  Man—­made in God’s own image—­and I felt
  How of our own accord we courted shame,
  Until to idols like ourselves we knelt,
  And so renounced the great and glorious claim
  Of freedom, our immortal heritage. 
  I saw how bigotry, with spiteful aim,
  Smote at the searching eyesight of the sage,
  How error stole behind the steps of truth,
  And cast delusion on the sacred page. 
  So, as a champion, even in early youth
  I waged my battle with a purpose keen;
  Nor feared the hand of terror, nor the tooth
  Of serpent jealousy.  And I have been
  With starry Galileo in his cell,
  That wise magician with the brow serene,
  Who fathomed space; and I have seen him tell
  The wonders of the planetary sphere,
  And trace the ramparts of heaven’s citadel
  On the cold flag-stones of his dungeon drear. 
  And I have walked with Hampden and with Vane—­
  Names once so gracious to an English ear—­
  In days that never may return again. 
  My voice, though not the loudest, hath been heard
  Whenever freedom raised her cry of pain,
  And the faint effort of the humble bard
  Hath roused up thousands from their lethargy,
  To speak in words of thunder.  What reward
  Was mine, or theirs?  It matters not; for I
  Am but a leaf cast on the whirling tide,
  Without a hope or wish, except to die. 
  But truth, asserted once, must still abide,
  Unquenchable, as are those fiery springs
  Which day and night gush from the mountain-side,
  Perpetual meteors girt with lambent wings,
  Which the wild tempest tosses to and fro,
  But cannot conquer with the force it brings. 
  Yet I, who ever felt another’s woe
  More keenly than my own untold distress;
  I, who have battled with the common foe,
  And broke for years the bread of bitterness;
  Who never yet abandoned or betrayed
  The trust vouchsafed me, nor have ceased to bless,
  Am left alone to wither in the shade,
  A weak old man, deserted by his kind—­
  Whom none will comfort in his age, nor aid!