149. Helas!

TO drift with every passion till my soul

Is as a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

Is it for this that I have given away

Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?

Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

With idle songs for pipe and virelay,

Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

Surely there was a time I might have trod

The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance

Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

Is that time dead? Lo! with a little rod

I did but touch the honey of romance—

And must I lose my soul’s inheritance?