Reading the worth of what we did despise,
And wise
At the journey’s end to weep it scarce begun
When done?
No more! ‘Tis ever the same story told
As of old.
Children, we used to wish our childhood past:
At last
It ended, as this journey ends, and we
Are free.
Shall we lament? It were an idle tale
To wail.
Can we be wise? Oh wisdom comes too late,
And fate
Answers our wicked prayer for liberty:
“Good–bye.”
Similar Posts
This is thy day, thy day of all the years.
Where thou didst sit, has vanished with thy tears.Thou shalt no longer weep in thy lone homeThe dead they slew for thee, or nurse thy doom,Or fan the smoking flax of thy desireTheir hatred could not quench. Thy hour is come;And these, if they would reap, must reap in fire.–What shall thy vengeance be? In…
THE SAME CONTINUED
Had seemed to both of us a monstrous lie,An idle boast, love’s last extravaganceOr the mere paradox of vanity.Now it is true and yet more hideouslyMore strangely monstrous. I, no less than you,Here own at length the worm which cannot die,The burden of a pain for ever new.This is the “pang of loss,” the bitterestWhich…
At such a time indeed of youth’s first morn,
A mighty labour as of joys unborn,Which grieves it and disquiets it in vain.The soul is scared at her own lack of peace,Her cradle song is mute, and she has fledFrom her old life as to a wilderness.She finds herself awake and without bread.‘Tis then the body, her new counsellor,Speaks in her ear, and still…
THE SAME CONTINUED
Vast as all heaven! See, what glory liesEntangled here in these base stratagems,What virtue done to death! O glorious sighs,Sublime beseechings, high cajoleries,Fond wraths, brave ruptures, all that sometime wasOur daily bread of gods beneath the skies,How are ye ended, in what utter loss!Time was, time is, and time is yet to come,Till even time…
O child of Joy! What idle life is thine!
And while thy joys are new to thee like wine,Chasest mad butterflies as children do.And lo, thou turnest from them to repine,Because it was not love thou didst pursue.O child of Hope! Thou sighest thy sad sighs,Mourning for that which is not nor can be.Where is the noon can match with thy sunrise?Whose is the…
‘Tis time, my soul, thou shouldst be purged of pride.
Make thee thus shrink from them and be denied?They are but as thou art, each mother’s sonA convict in transgression. Here is one,Sayest thou, who struck his fellow and he died.And yet he weeps hot tears. Do thy tears run?This other thieved, yet clasps Christ crucified.Where is thy greater virtue? Thinkest thou sinIs but crime’s…