And slow and slower still, day after day,
Come the sad Hours, with beauteous upturned eyes
Gleaming with hopes I may not realise,
And seeming in their earnestness to say
Entreatingly—O send us not away
All empty-handed as we came! Arise,
Give us at least some promise we shall prize,
To be fulfilled, though after long delay.—
And I, although I weep to see them pass
With lingering pace and disappointed look,
Am lifeless as a statue bound with brass,
And listless as an open loose-leaved book
Turned by the wind; yea, passive as the grass,
Weak as the wavelet of a summer brook.