O ye faint touches, that but tire the gaze,
Casting reflection on incompetence;
O all ye thoughts, that weave truth’s tangled maze,
Would we might grasp your spirit’s hidden sense:
Man is shut out from what himself assists;
Too dear-bought self, rich privilege to conceal,
Strange substance, individualized, that twists
A web, it knows not how, more stiff than steel:
Man knows not how, or wherefore, whence, or why;
He thinks that he must go; whither? he doubts,
Creeds he must form and hopes; he cannot fly,
And haply would not, fostering fears he scouts;
Thrown on the world, he’d lose, in the world’s din,
Too fine perception of sad worlds within.