Breath freezes on my lips to moan;
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature's door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
Whose desolated days go on.

...

I knock and cry . . . Undone, undone !
Is there no help, no comfort . . . none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.

This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June.
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such. What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?

No bird am I to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.

Good nests and berries red are Nature's

To give away to better creatures

And yet my days go on, go on.

I ask less kindness to be done -
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet,
Till days go out which now go on.

Only to lift the turf unmown

66

From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say, “ Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on."

What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.

DE PROFUNDIS.

From gracious Nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? May I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe, who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?

A Voice reproves me thereupon,

More sweet than Nature's, when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep,
Than when the rivers overleap

The shuddering pines, and thunder on.

God's Voice, not Nature's - night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne
And listens for the creatures' praise.
What babble we of days and days?
The Dayspring He, whose days go on.

He reigns above, he reigns alone:
Systems burn out and leave His throne:
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all!
Ancient of days, whose days go on!

He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And having life in love foregone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the jealous God. Who mourns
Or rules with HIM, while days go on?

By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among the creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,

However darkly days go on.

-Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!

No mortal grief deserves that crown.

O supreme Love, chief misery,

The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!

223

For us,

...

whatever's undergone,

Thou knowest, willest what is done.
Grief may be joy misunderstood:
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.

Whatever's lost, it first was won:
We will not struggle nor impugn.
Perhaps the cup was broken here

That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.

I praise Thee while my days go on!

I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on !

Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost
I thank Thee while my days go on!

And, having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops some pebble small
Down some deep well and hears it fall,
Smiling... so I! THY DAYS GO ON!

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Tears, idle Tears.

EARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

TE

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
That brings our friends up from the under-world,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

SWEET ARE THE ROSY MEMORIES.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

225

ALFRED TENNYSON.

Sweet are the Rosy Memories.

WEET are the rosy memories of the lips

they kiss no more:

Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships,
Although they leave us on a lonely shore:
Sweet are familiar songs, though Music dips

Her hollow shell in Thought's forlornest wells :
And sweet, though sad, the sound of midnight bells,
When the oped casement with the night-rain drips.

There is a pleasure which is born of pain:
The grave of all things hath its violet.
Else why, through days which never come again,
Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret?

Why put the posy in the cold dead hand?

Why plant the rose above the lonely grave?

Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave?

Why deem the dead more near in native land?

Thy name hath been a silence in my life
So long, it falters upon language now,

Oh, more to me than sister or than wife

Once... and now - nothing! It is hard to know That such things have been, and are not, and yet Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure, And goes upon its business and its pleasure, And knows not all the depths of its regret.

ROBERT BULWER LYTTON.

Another Year.

"ANOTHER year," she said, “another year,

These roses I have watched with so much care, Have watched and tended without pain or fear, Shall bud and bloom for me exceeding fair Another year," she said, "another year."

"Another year," she said, "another year,

My life perhaps may bud and bloom again, May bud and bloom like these red roses here, Unlike them, tended with regret and pain Another year perhaps, another year.

"Another year, ah yes, another year,

When bloom my roses, all my life shall bloom ; When summer comes, my summer too 'll be here, And I shall cease to wander in this gloom Another year, ah yes, another year.

"For ah, another year, another year,

I'll set my life in richer, stronger soil,
And prune the weeds away that creep too near,
And watch and tend with never-ceasing toil -
Another year, ah yes, another year."