VI.

Not much he loved long question of the past, Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast, In those far lands where he had wandered lone, And--as himself would have it seem--unknown: Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan, Nor glean experience from his fellow man; 90 But what he had beheld he shunned to show, As hardly worth a stranger's care to know; If still more prying such inquiry grew, His brow fell darker, and his words more few.