Classic Poem

Over and over again I lose myself in sorrow;
Whatever I have borne I bear again tenfold.
The death of sorrow is a sleep; a newer sorrow
Wakes into flame from ashes of the old.

They said that sorrow died and that a sorrow buried
Made your mind a dear place like a grave with grass,
Where you might rest yourself as in a willow's shadow,
And cold and clean, might feel the long world pass.

But sorrow does not die, sorrow only gathers
Weight about itself — a clay that bakes to stone.
When your own share of sorrow has worn itself to slumber
Then every woman's sorrow is your own.