Lxxiii

But take the rill which ends a race o'er yonder ledge O' the fissured cliff, to find its fate in smoke below! Disengage that, and ask--what news of life, you know It led, that long lone way, through pasture, plain and waste? All 's gone to give the sea! no touch of earth, no taste Of air, reserved to tell how rushes used to bring The butterfly and bee, and fisher-bird that 's king O' the purple kind, about the snow-soft silver-sweet Infant of mist and dew; only these atoms fleet, Embittered evermore, to make the sea one drop More big thereby--if thought keep count where sense must stop.