Hardly we learn to ply the pen
ere Thought and Fancy faint with cold.

Hardly we find the path of love,
to sink the self, forget the "I,"
When sad suspicion grips the heart,
when Man, _the_ Man begins to die:

Hardly we scale the wisdom-heights,
and sight the Pisgah-scene around,
And breathe the breath of heav'enly air,
and hear the Spheres' harmonious sound;

When swift the Camel-rider spans
the howling waste, by Kismet sped,
And of his Magic Wand a wave
hurries the quick to join the dead.*

* Death in Arabia rides a Camel, not a pale horse.

How sore the burden, strange the strife;
how full of splendour, wonder, fear;
Life, atom of that Infinite Space
that stretcheth 'twixt the Here and There.

How Thought is imp'otent to divine
the secret which the gods defend,
The Why of birth and life and death,
that Isis-veil no hand may rend.