Try Not to Feel.
They sat in the gathering twilight,
Night's candles alit in the sky,
And talked of the world and its trials,—
The one with a tear in her eye,
The other grown older and patient,
With scars on her heart yet to heal,
As she whispered the one who sat near her
"You must toil on and try not to feel."
Night's candles alit in the sky,
And talked of the world and its trials,—
The one with a tear in her eye,
The other grown older and patient,
With scars on her heart yet to heal,
As she whispered the one who sat near her
"You must toil on and try not to feel."
"Try not to feel!" And the woman
Whose lines into places not fair
Had fallen, looked up, as the omen
Fell on her ear, with despair.
"Try not to feel!" Should she crush it,
This God-given instinct? Ah, no—
Thrust it aside, all the good and the true,
To the level of brutes must she go?
Whose lines into places not fair
Had fallen, looked up, as the omen
Fell on her ear, with despair.
"Try not to feel!" Should she crush it,
This God-given instinct? Ah, no—
Thrust it aside, all the good and the true,
To the level of brutes must she go?
"Try not to feel!" Indurated
As one who like marble had grown?
While toiling for bread, all weary and worn,
She must smile when they gave her a stone;
Smile when a curse fell upon her,
Heed not how cruel the blows;
"Try not to feel!" It is nothing,
And in the Hereafter,—who knows?
As one who like marble had grown?
While toiling for bread, all weary and worn,
She must smile when they gave her a stone;
Smile when a curse fell upon her,
Heed not how cruel the blows;
"Try not to feel!" It is nothing,
And in the Hereafter,—who knows?
—15—
