I Am Always Easy Of Belief When

For I Too Liked Reading, Thought Of A Frivolous And Childish Kind; I Could Not Digest Or Comprehend The Serious Or Substantial.

While I Loved, And While I Was Loved, What An Existence I Enjoyed!

A Christmas Frost Had Come At Midsummer; A White December Storm Had Whirled Over June; Ice Glazed The Ripe Apples, Drifts Crushed The Blowing Roses; On Hayfield And Cornfield Lay A Frozen Shroud: Lanes Which Last Night Blushed Full Of Flowers, To-day Were Pathless With Untrodden Snow; And The Woods, Which Twelve Hours Since Waved Leafy And Flagrant As Groves Between The Tropics, Now Spread, Waste, Wild, And White As Pine-forests In Wintry Norway.

Monsieur, Sit Down; Listen To Me. I Am Not A Heathen, I Am Not Hard-hearted, I Am Not Unchristian, I Am Not Dangerous, As They Tell You; I Would Not Trouble Your Faith; You Believe In God And Christ And The Bible, And So Do I.

Life Is Still Life, Whatever Its Pangs; Our Eyes And Ears And Their Use Remain With Us, Though The Prospect Of What Pleases Be Wholly Withdrawn, And The Sound Of What Consoles Must Be Silenced.