To learn to transport by the pain

LII.

TO learn the transport by the pain,

      As blind men learn the sun;

To die of thirst, suspecting

That brooks in meadows run;

To stay the homesick, homesick feet

Upon a foreign shore

Haunted by native lands, the while,

And blue, beloved air—

This is the sovereign anguish,

This, the signal woe!

These are the patient laureates

Whose voices, trained below,

Ascend in ceaseless carol,

Inaudible, indeed,

To us, the duller scholars

Of the mysterious bard!