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His marriage to a girl who loved him not,

And yet who lived within his childless home,

For binding was the tie once made by Rome,

Until at last her ways became a blot,

And by her sins she ceased to be his wife.

Since then he lived a recluse more or less,

Except when boon-companions with him met,

To dine, or rather to a revelry,

When wine and music set his spirit free,

When he life’s disappointments could forget,

And when some transient bliss he did caress.

But feasts, of such a nature, yearly grew

Less frequent, for his real self was good,

And governed him, as he in age advanced;

And now the chimes his being so entranced,

That all the hunger of his heart found food

In their sweet intonations, ever new.

They fed his innate philosophic bent,

And made him delve into the subtlest lore

Of Metaphysics and Theology,

That he through these, perchance, might clearer see

The truth which echoed from another shore,

Each time their sovereign voice the silence rent.

And he waxed confident, the human cry