The Interloper

"And I saw the figure and visage of Madness seeking for a home."     There are three folk driving in a quaint old chaise,     And the cliff-side track looks green and fair;     I view them talking in quiet glee     As they drop down towards the puffins' lair     By the roughest of ways;     But another with the three rides on, I see,      Whom I like not to be there!     No: it's not anybody you think of. Next     A dwelling appears by a slow sweet stream     Where two sit happy and half in the dark:     They read, helped out by a frail-wick'd gleam,     Some rhythmic text;     But one sits with them whom they don't mark,      One I'm wishing could not be there.     No: not whom you knew and name. And now     I discern gay diners in a mansion-place,     And the guests dropping wit - pert, prim, or choice,     And the hostess's tender and laughing face,     And the host's bland brow;     I cannot help hearing a hollow voice,      And I'd fain not hear it there.     No: it's not from the stranger you met once. Ah,     Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds;     People on a lawn - quite a crowd of them. Yes,     And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads;     And they say, "Hurrah!"     To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless,      Who ought not to be there.     Nay: it's not the pale Form your imagings raise,     That waits on us all at a destined time,     It is not the Fourth Figure the Furnace showed,     O that it were such a shape sublime;     In these latter days!     It is that under which best lives corrode;      Would, would it could not be there!