X.
``So, what if in the dusk of life that's left,
``I, a tired traveller of my sun bereft,
Look from my path when, mimicking the same,
``The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?
``---Where was it till the sunset? where anon
``It will be at the sunrise! What's to blame?''
XI.
Is it so helpful to thee? Canst thou take
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake,
Put gently by such efforts at a beam?
Is the remainder of the way so long,
Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!
XII.
---Ah, but the fresher faces! ``Is it true,''
Thou'lt ask, ``some eyes are beautiful and new?
``Some hair,---how can one choose but grasp such wealth?
``And if a man would press his lips to lips
``Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips
``The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?
XIII.
``It cannot change the love still kept for Her,
``More than if such a picture I prefer
``Passing a day with, to a room's bare side:
The painted form takes nothing she possessed,
Yet, while the Titian's Venus lies at rest,
A man looks.
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