Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/828

 JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN

Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,

How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom, No star of all heaven sends to light our Path to the tomb.

Roll on, my song, and to after ages

Tell how, disdaining all earth can give, He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages, The way to live.

And tell how trampled, x derided, hated,

And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong, He fled for shelter to God, who mated His soul with song.

With song which alway, sublime or vapid, Flow'd like a rill in the morning beam, Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid A mountain stream.

Tell how this Nameless, condemn 'd for years long

To herd with demons from hell beneath, Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long For even death.

Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,

Bctray'd in friendship, befooPd in love, With spirit shipwreck'd, and young hopes blasted, He still, still strove,

Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others

(And some whose hands should have wrought for hit If children live not for sires and mothers), His mind grew dim;

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