TEN thousand fancies flitting through the mind,
An impulse here, a half-created thought
Are, in the stress of fancied duty, taught
To bow and pass and leave no trace behind.
Or carelessness, destructive as the wind,
More prodigal than nature, valuing not
The store of life that pain and joy have wrought
Laughs and forgets, blind leader of the blind!
We are but open caskets whence are fled
The choicest gifts God-given; while we retain
Indifference with a blustering hardihead,
And querulousness before a righteous pain;
Pale pietism, when virtue's self is dead,
With smug conceit impregnable and vain.