Des voluptés intérieures,
  Le sourire mystérieux.
       -- Victor Hugo

A common folk I walk among;
I speak dull things in their own tongue:
  But all the while within I hear 
  A song I do not sing for fear --
How sweet, how different a thing! 
  And when I come where none are near
I open all my heart and sing.

I am made one with these indeed,
And give them all the love they need --
  Such love as they would have of me :
  But in my heart -- ah, let it be! --
I think of it when none is nigh --
  There is a love they shall not see;
For it I live -- for it will die.

And ofttimes, though I share their joys,
And seem to praise them with my voice,
  Do I not celebrate my own,
  Ay, down in some far inward zone
Of thoughts in which they have no part?
  Do I not feel -- ah, quite alone
With all the secret of my heart?

O when the shroud of night is spread
On these, as Death is on the dead,
  So that no sight of them shall mar
  The blessed rapture of a star --
Then I draw forth those thoughts at will;
  And like the stars those bright thoughts are;
And boundless seems the heart they fill:

For every one is as a link;
And I enchain them as I think;
  Till present and remembered bliss,
  And better worlds on after this,
I have -- led on from each to each
  Athwart the limitless abyss --
In some surpassing sphere I reach.

I draw a veil across my face
Before I come back to the place
  And dull obscurity of these;
  I hide my face, and no man sees;
I learn to smile a lighter smile,
  And change and look just what they please.
It is but for a little while.

I go with them; and in their sight
I would not scorn their little light,
  Nor mock the things they hold divine;
  But when I kneel before the shrine
Of some base deity of theirs, 
  I pray all inwardly to mine,
And send my soul up with my prayers:

For I -- ah, to myself I say --
I have a heaven though far away;
  And there my love went long ago,
  With all the things my heart loves so ;
And there my songs fly, every one:
  And I shall find them there I know
When this sad pilgrimage is done.