There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness.
For hope grew round me like the twining vine,
And fruit and foliage not my own seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me to the earth,
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh ! each visitation
Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping power of imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to seal
From my own natural all the natural man;
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.