  He puts the poem by, to say His eyes are not themselves to-day! A sudden glamour o’er his sight— A something vague, indefinite— An oft-recurring blur that blinds The printed meaning of the lines, And leaves the mind all dusk and dim In swimming darkness—strange to him! It is not childishness, I guess,— Yet something of the tenderness That used to wet his lashes when A boy seems troubling him again;— The old emotion, sweet and wild, That drove him truant when a child, That he might hide the tears that fell Above the lesson—“Little Nell.” And so it is he puts aside The poem he has vainly tried To follow; and, as one who sighs In failure, through a poor disguise Of smiles, he dries his tears, to say |
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