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| THERE were two youths of equal age, | |
| Wit, station, strength, and parentage; | |
| They studied at the self-same schools, | |
| And shaped their thoughts by common rules. | |
| |
| One pondered on the life of man, | 5 |
| His hopes, his endings, and began | |
| To rate the Market’s sordid war | |
| As something scarce worth living for. | |
| |
| “I’ll brace to higher aims,” said he, | |
| “I’ll further Truth and Purity; | 10 |
| Thereby to mend and mortal lot | |
| And sweeten sorrow. Thrive I not, | |
| |
| “Winning their hearts, my kind will give | |
| Enough that I may lowly live, | |
| And house my Love in some dim dell, | 15 |
| For pleasing them and theirs so well.” | |
| |
| Idly attired, with features wan, | |
| In secret swift he labored on; | |
| Such press of power had brought much gold | |
| Applied to things of meaner mould. | 20 |
| |
| Sometimes he wished his aims had been | |
| To gather gains like other men; | |
| Then thanked his God he’d traced his track | |
| Too far for wish to drag him back. | |
| |
| He lookèd from his loft one day | 25 |
| To where his slighted garden lay; | |
| Nettles and hemlock hid each lawn, | |
| And every flower was starved and gone. | |
| |
| He fainted in his heart, whereon | |
| He rose, and sought his plighted one, | 30 |
| Resolved to loose her bond withal, | |
| Lest she should perish in his fall. | |
| |
| He met her with a careless air, | |
| As though he’d ceased to find her fair, | |
| And said: “True love is dust to me; | 35 |
| I cannot kiss: I tire of thee!” | |
| |
| (That she might scorn him was he fain, | |
| To put her sooner out of pain; | |
| For incensed love breathes quick and dies, | |
| When famished love a-lingering lies.) | 40 |
| |
| Once done, his soul was so betossed, | |
| It found no more the force it lost: | |
| Hope was his only drink and food, | |
| And hope extinct, decay ensued. | |
| |
| And, living long so closely penned, | 45 |
| He had not kept a single friend; | |
| He dwindled thin as phantoms be, | |
| And drooped to death in poverty…. | |
| |
| Meantime his schoolmate had gone out | |
| To join the fortune-finding rout; | 50 |
| He liked the winnings of the mart, | |
| But wearied of the working part. | |
| |
| He turned to seek a privy lair, | |
| Neglecting note of garb and hair, | |
| And day by day reclined and thought | 55 |
| How he might live by doing nought. | |
| |
| “I plan a valued scheme,” he said | |
| To some. “But lend me of your bread, | |
| And when the vast result looms nigh, | |
| In profit you shall stand as I.” | 60 |
| |
| Yet they took counsel to restrain | |
| Their kindness till they saw the gain; | |
| And, since his substance now had run, | |
| He rose to do what might be done. | |
| |
| He went unto his Love by night, | 65 |
| And said: “My Love, I faint in fight: | |
| Deserving as thou dost a crown, | |
| My cares shall never drag thee down.” | |
| |
| (He had descried a maid whose line | |
| Would hand her on much corn and wine, | 70 |
| And held her far in worth above | |
| One who could only pray and love.) | |
| |
| But this Fair read him; whence he failed | |
| To do the deed so blithely hailed; | |
| He saw his projects wholly marred, | 75 |
| And gloom and want oppressed him hard; | |
| |
| Till, living to so mean an end, | |
| Whereby he’d lost his every friend, | |
| He perished in a pauper sty, | |
| His mate the dying pauper nigh. | 80 |
| |
| And moralists, reflecting, said, | |
| As “dust to dust” in burial read | |
| Was echoed from each coffin-lid, | |
“These men were like in all they did.”
1866. | |
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