And taste the calm completion of content. 
But in a sober chilled grey atmosphere
Work out their lives; more various though they are
Than creatures in the unknown ocean depths,
Yet each in whom this vital grief has root
Is dull to what makes everything of worth. 
And though, may be, a shallow bodily joy
Oft tingles through them at the breathing spring,
Or first-heard exultation of the lark;
Still that deep weight draws ever steadily
Their thoughts and passions back to secret woe. 
Though, if endowed with light, heroic deeds
May be achieved; and if benignly bent
They may be treasured blessings through their lives;
Yet power and goodness are to them as dreams,
And they heed vaguely, if their waking sight
Be met with slanting storm against the pane,
Or sunshine glittering on the leaves that play
In purest blue of breezy summer morns.

Whence springs this well of mournfulness profound,
Unfathomable to plummet cast by man? 
Alas; for who can tell!  Whence comes the wind
Heaving the ocean into maddened arms
That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks,
And scatter them, as if compacted slight
As little eggs boys star against a tree
In wanton mischief?  Whence, detestable,
To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws,
The power that in the logging crocodiles’
Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life? 
That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood
Of lava, overwhelming works and men
In burning, fetid ruin?—­The power that stings
A city with a pestilence:  or turns
The pretty babe, who in his mother’s lap
Babbles her back the lavished kiss and laugh,
Through lusts and vassalage to obdurate sin,
Into a knife-armed midnight murderer?

Our lives are mysteries, and rarely scanned
As we read stories writ by mortal pen. 
We can perchance but catch a straying weft
And trace the hinted texture here or there,
Of that stupendous loom weaving our fates. 
Two parents, late in life, are haply blessed
With one bright child, a wonder in his years,
For loveliness and genius versatile: 
Some common ill destroys him; parents, both,
Until their death, are left but living tombs
That hold the one dead image of their joy. 
A man, the flower of honour, who has found
His well-beloved young daughter fled from home,
Fallen from her maidenhood, a nameless thing
Tainting his blood.  A youth who throws the strength
Of his whole being into love for one
Answering him honeyed smiles, and leaves his land
For some far country, seeking wealth he hopes
Will grace her daintily with choice delights,
And on returning sees the honeyed smiles
Are sweetening other lips.  A husband who
Has found that household curse, a faithless wife. 
A thinker whose far-piercing care perceives
His nation goes the road that ends in shame. 
A gracious woman whose reserve denies