Page:Sarah Sheppard - L. E. L.pdf/134

 I was? I have felt—have thought so much. Talk of the mind exhausting itself—never! Think of the mass of material which every day accumulates! Then, experience, with its calm, clear light, corrects so many youthful fallacies; every day we feel our greater power and our higher moral responsibilities. What beautiful creations even now rush over me!—but no, no, I am dying,—I shall write no more.' * * *

"'Deeply do I feel,' said the poet, on another occasion, 'when the scattered thoughts obey my bidding no longer, and the hand once so swift to give them tangible shape lies languid at my side, that I have not done half that I ought to have done. How many hours of wasted time, how many worse than wasted, now rise up in judgment against me! And, oh, my God! have I sufficiently felt the moral responsibility of gifts like my own? Have I not questioned, sometimes too rashly, of what it was never meant mortal mind should measure? Have I not sometimes flung the passing annoyance of a wounded feeling too bitterly on my pages? I repent me of it now. Oh, my Creator!' exclaimed he, 'I am not worthy of the gifts bestowed upon me! Let me not forget, that, though this worn and fevered frame perish, my mind remains behind to influence and to benefit its race! May what was in aught evil of its creations be forgotten; may aught that was good endure to the end!'

"And so perished, in the flower of his age, in the promise of his mind, the high-minded and gifted Walter Maynard. He died poor, surrounded by the presence of life's harsh and evil allotment, but the faithful and affectionate spirit kept its own till the last.

"How many beautiful creations, how many glorious dreams, went with him to the tomb! But the