Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green; Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star; Who makes by force his merit known And moving up from high to higher, Becomes in Fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope, The center of a world's desire; Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs He played at counselors and kings With one that was his earliest mate; Who ploughs with pain his native lea LXVII When on my bed the moonlight falls, Thy marble bright in dark appears, The mystic glory swims away; And then I know the mist is drawn LXXXVIII 5 10 15 20 25 15 Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 5 |