Alas, thou hast a juster grief, defrauded of their kindness: It is a theme for tears to feel the soft heart hardening, The frozen breath of apathy sealing up the fountain of affection; And slumbering Neglect is injury, could ye not watch one hour? And indifference bowed to the rebuke, Thou gavest Me no kiss when I came in. Moreover, praise is good; honour is a treasure to be hoarded; A good man's praise foreshadoweth God's, and in His smile is heaven: Calm, careless, and insensible, he mocketh blame or calumny, Neither should his dignity be humbled to some pittance of their praise: The rather, let false pride affect to trample on the treasure Which evermore in secret strength unconquered Nature prizeth; Rather, shall he stifle now the rising bliss of triumph, Lest after, in the world's Neglect, he must acknowledge bitterness. For lo, that world is wide, a huge and crowded continent, Its brazen sun is mammon, and its iron soil is care, A world full of men, where each man clingeth to his idol ; A world full of men, where each man cherisheth his sorrow; A world full of men, multitude shoaling upon multitude; A surging sea, where every wave is burdened with an argosy of self; A boundless beach, where every stone is a separate microscopic world; A forest of innumerable trees, where every root is independent. What then is the marvel or the shame, if units be lost among the million? Canst thou reasonably murmur, if a leaf drop off unnoticed? Wondrous in architecture, intricate and beautiful, delicately tinged and scented, Exquisite of feeling and mysterious in life, none cared for its growth, or its decay : None? yea,-no one of its fellows,-nor cedar, palm, nor bramble, None? its twinborn brother scarcely missed it from the spray: And ye, poor desolates unsunned, toilers in the dark damp mine, There be that can forgive your ill with kind considerate pity: And yet another world can compensate for all: The daily martyrdom of patience shall not be wanting of reward; Ye too, the friendless, yet dependent, that find nor home nor lover, Be ye long-suffering and courageous; abide the will of Heaven : God is on your side; all things are tenderly remembered: His servants here shall help you; and where those fail you through Neg lect, His kingdom still hath time and space for ample discriminative Justice: Yea, though utterly on this bad earth ye lose both right and mercy, The tears that we forgat to note, our God shall wipe away. Nevertheless, kind spirit, susceptible and guileless, Meek uncherished dove, in a carrion flock of fowls, Sensitive mimosa, shrinking from the winds that help to root the fir, Yet hear how many thoughts extenuate its pain; Even while a kindred heart can sorrow for its presence. For the sting of neglect is in this, that such as we are, all forget us, That men and women, kith and kin, so lightly heed of other: Sympathy is lacking from the guilty such as we, even where angels minister, And souls of fine accord must prize a fellow-sinner's love : For the worst love those who love them, and the best claim heart for heart, And it is a holy thirst to long for love's requital : Hard it will be, hard and sad, to love and be unloved, And many a thorn is thrust into the side of him that is forgotten. The unaided struggle, the unconsidered grief, the unesteemed self-sacrifice, Is as if the stable world had burst a hollow bubble. But, consider child of sensibility; the lot of men is labour, Labour for the mouth, or labour in the spirit, labour stern and individual. Worldly cares and worldly hopes exact the thoughts of all, And there is a necessary selfishness rooted in each mortal breast. The plans of prudence, or the whisperings of pride, or all-absorbing reveries of love, Ambition, grief, or fear, or joy, set each man for himself: Therefore, the centre of a cycle, whereunto all the universe convergeth, Is seen in fallen solitude, the naked selfish heart: Stripped of conventional deceptions, untrammelled from the harness of society, We all may read one little word engraved on all we do; Other men, what are they unto us? the age, the mass, the million,- An earthly law for earthly men, toiling in responsible probation. For each is the all unto himself, disguise it as we may, Each infinite, each most precious; yet even as a nothing to his neighbour. How shouldst thou marvel and be sad that the pilgrims trouble not to learn thee, When each hath to master for himself the lessons of life and immortality? Moreover, what art thou,-so vainly impatient of neglect, It is mercy in the Merciful, and justice in the Just, to be jealous of his creature's love, But how should evil or duplicity arrogate affection to itself? Where love is happiness and duty, to be jealous of that love is godlike, But who can reverence the guilty? who findeth pleasure in the mean? Check the presumption of thy hopes: thankfully take refuge in obscurity, Or, if thou claimest merit, thy sin shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. Yet again: consider them of old, the good, the great, the learned, What shall I say of yonder band, a glorious cloud of witnesses, The scorned, defamed, insulted,—but the excellent of earth? It were weariness to count up noble names, neglected in their lives, Whom none esteemed, nor cared to love, till death had sealed them his. For good men are the health of the world, valued only when it perisheth, Like water, light, and air, all precious in their absence. Who hath considered the blessing of his breath, till the poison of an asthma struck him? Who hath regarded the just pulses of his heart, till spasm or paralysis have stopped them? Even thus, an unobserved routine of daily grace and wisdom, When no more here, had worship of a world, whose penitence atoned for its neglect. And living genius is seen among infirmities, wherefrom the commoner are free; And other rival men of mind crowd this arena of contention; And there be many cares; and a man knoweth little of his brother; How great the treachery of friends, how dangerous the courtesy of enemies. But, immersed in perceptions of the present, keep things absent out of thought: Thus, where ingratitude, and guilt, and labour, and selfishness would harden, Humbly will the good man bow, unmurmuring, to Neglect. Yet once more, griever at Neglect, hear me to thy comfort, or rebuke: Many a word of comfort, many a deed of magnanimity, Neglect? O charitable world, where thousands feed on bounty; Neglect ? O just world, for thy judgments err not often ; Neglect? O libel on a world, where half that world is woman! Where is the afflicted, whose voice, once heard, stirreth not a host of com forters ? |