ON THE SAME SUBJECT
THOUGH I beheld at first with blank surprise This Work, I now have gazed on it so long I see its truth with unreluctant eyes; O, my Beloved! I have done thee wrong, Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung, Ever too heedless, as I now perceive: Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, And the old day was welcome as the young, As welcome and as beautiful–in sooth More beautiful, as being a thing more holy: 10 Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth Of all thy goodness, never melancholy; To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast Into one vision, future, present, past. 1841.