LXIX.
             
        I dream’d there would be Spring no more,
            That Nature’s ancient power was lost:
            The streets were black with smoke and frost,
        They chatter’d trifles at the door:

        I wander’d from the noisy town,
            I found a wood with thorny boughs:
            I took the thorns to bind my brows,
        I wore them like a civic crown:

        I met with scoffs, I met with scorns
            From youth and babe and hoary hairs:
            They call’d me in the public squares
        The fool that wears a crown of thorns:

        They call’d me fool, they call’d me child:
            I found an angel of the night;
            The voice was low, the look was bright;
        He look’d upon my crown and smiled:

        He reach’d the glory of a hand,
            That seem’d to touch it into leaf:
            The voice was not the voice of grief,
        The words were hard to understand.