Sonnet Xxxvi. Life And Death. 8.

NOT for a rapture unalloyed I ask. Not for a recompense for all I miss. A banquet of the gods in heavenly bliss, A realm in whose warm sunshine I may bask, Life without discipline or earnest task Could ill repay the unfinished work of this. Nay — e'en to clasp some long-lost Beatrice In bowers of paradise — the mortal mask Dropped from her face now glorified and bright. But I would fain take up what here I left All crude and incomplete; would toil and strive To regain the power of which I am bereft By slow decay and death, with fuller light To aid the larger life that may survive.