Page:Reuben and other poems.pdf/26

 Old joys incredible; and days to come Held but one fact, frightful, inevitable, Real. Within doors often now forbid, Excluded by himself at first, until Time to a front of perfect apathy Should school him, his free wanderings over down And cliff-side and the curious varied shore He yet abandon’d quite, and all day long Toil’d only with a double industry At the old duties, rarely from earshot Of what the humble home of Joy had been Once, but was now of Anguish. And when light Fail’d him, or labour, he would creep away Into the old wood-shed, and there for hours Sit, with a listless hand on Pilot’s neck, Blankly before him gazing, motionless; Till a shrill summons, or the step that woke The dog’s low growling, call’d him. No Psalms now, And a far different, harder prayer, alone.

But level steps ’twixt rock and rock are found, Moments of lull in storms, and ’mid long pain A respite. Mercy’s pangs would slack at times, And Sarah’s conscience warrant to all three A holiday from over-help. Such care As Reuben’s, strait-laced up at every point With endless detail’d charges, then might serve, And she among the village gossips take