pain

SAD is my lot; among the shining spheres
Wheeling, I weave incessant day and night,
And ever, in my never-ending flight,
Add woes to woes, and count up tears on tears.
Young wives’ and new-born infants’ hapless biers
Lie on my breast, a melancholy sight;
Fresh griefs abhor my fresh returning light;
Pain and remorse and want fill up my years.
My happier children’s farther-piercing eyes
Into the blessed solvent future climb,
And knit the threads of joy and hope and warning;

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,

I just think that dreams are best,
Just to sit and fancy things;
Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
Fancy men upright and true:
Fortressed in your solitude,
Let Life be a dream to you.
II
For I think that Thought is all;
Truth's a minion of the mind;
Love's ideal comes at call;
As ye seek so shall ye find.
But ye must not seek too far;
Things are never what they seem:
Let a star be just a star,

I.

Abash'd the rebel squadrons yield--
MACBETH , the victor of the field,
Exulting, past the blasted wild;
And where his dark o'erhanging towers
Frown on the heath, with pleasures mild
Now DUNCAN hastes to wing the hours--
Sweet are the rosy beams that chase
The angry tempest from the sky;
When winds have shook the mountain's base,
Sweet is the zephyr's balmy sigh;
But sweeter to the breast the social charms
Whose grateful rapture sooths the toil of arms.


II.

That some day, emerging at last from the terrifying vision
I may burst into jubilant praise to assenting angels!
That of the clear-struck keys of the heart not one may fail
to sound because of a loose, doubtful or broken string!
That my streaming countenance may make me more resplendent
That my humble weeping change into blossoms.
Oh, how will you then, nights of suffering, be remembered
with love. Why did I not kneel more fervently, disconsolate
sisters, more bendingly kneel to receive you, more loosely

Every night I lie awake
And every day I lie abed
And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,
Confering at my head.

They speak in scientific tones,
Professional and low--
One argues for a speedy cure,
The other, sure and slow.

To one so humble as myself
It should be matter for some pride
To have such noted fellows here,
Conferring at my side.

I was not beloved of the villagers,
But all because I spoke my mind,
And met those who transgressed against me
With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing
Nor secret griefs nor grudges.
That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,
Who hid the wolf under his cloak,
Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.
It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth
And fight him openly, even in the street,
Amid dust and howls of pain.
The tongue may be an unruly member --
But silence poisons the soul.

She said: "I am too old to play
With dolls," and put them all away,
Into a box, one rainy day.
II
I think she must have felt some pain,
She looked so long into the rain,
Then sighed: "I'll bring you out again;
III
"For I'll have little children too,
With sunny hair and eyes of blue
And they will play and play with you.
IV
"And now good-bye, my pretty dears;
There in the dark for years and years,
Dream of your little mother's tears."
V
Eglantine, Pierrot and Marie Claire,

If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road,
Who meets us by the way,
Goes on less conscious of his galling load,
Then life, indeed, does pay.

If we can show the troubled heart the gain
That lies always in loss,
Why, then, we too are paid for all the pain
Of bearing life’s hard cross.

If some despondent soul to hope is stirred,
Some sad lip made to smile,
By any act of ours, or any word,
Then, life has been worth while.

Man dies too soon, beside his works half-planned.
His days are counted and reprieve is vain:
Who shall entreat with Death to stay his hand;
Or cloke the shameful nakedness of pain?

Send here the bold, the seekers of the way--
The passionless, the unshakeable of soul,
Who serve the inmost mysteries of man's clay,
And ask no more than leave to make them whole.