Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,

What households, though not alien, yet not mine,

What bowers of rest divine;

To what temptations in lone wildernesses,

What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,

The bearing of what cross!

I do not know; nor will I vainly question

Those pages of the mystic book which hold

The story still untold,

But without rash conjecture or suggestion

Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,

Until "The End" I read.

Baffled I return, and, leaning

O'er. the parapets of cloud,

Watch the mist that intervening

Wraps the valley in its shroud.

And the sounds of life ascending

Faintly, vaguely, meet the ear,

Murmur of bells and voices blending With the rush of waters near.

Well I know what there lies hidden,

Every tower and town and farm,

And again the land forbidden

Reassumes its vanished charm.