Canto XXVI
Still onward winds the dreary way;I with it; for I long to proveNo lapse of moons can canker Love,Whatever fickle tongues may say.
And if that eye which watches guiltAnd goodness, and hath power to seeWithin the green the moulder’d tree,And towers fall’n as soon as built—
Oh, if indeed that eye foreseeOr see (in Him is no before)In more of life true life no more,And Love the indifference to be,
So might I find, ere yet the mornBreaks hither over Indian seas,That Shadow waiting with the keys,To cloak me from my proper scorn.