VIII.

Yet once I sank. Alas! man’s wavering mind! Wherefore and whence the gusts that o’er it blow? How they bear with them, floating uncombined, The shadows of the past, that come and go, As o’er the deep the old long-buried things Which a storm’s working to the surface brings! Is the reed shaken,--and must _we_ be so, With every wind? So, Father! must we be, Till we can fix undimm’d our steadfast eyes on Thee.