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Sorrow voices.
To weigh my anguish with another's pain
Will make it none the lighter, and, distinct
'Tis shapen from the common mass of sorrow;
Nor can I lose it in a crowd of griefs.
Be sure that it is large enough to fill
My aching heart.
My aching heart. As mothers clasp their babes,
Thou hold'st it there. As mothers chide their offspring,
Thou dost complain of it, yet snatch it back,
If part withdrawn; and, when its fretful life
Is quite extinct, no doubt thou wilt enfold it
As mothers clasp dead infants to their bosoms.

How terrible must be the countenance
Of a dead grief!
Of a dead grief! Ay, grief untimely dead,
Slain in its prime, struck down by violent hands—
Say shame or scorn. Its desolate white shape,
Uncoffined, lies in some still separate chamber
That thought goes by, a-tiptoe, that's a bugbear
To the sweet infant, joy. Not so the grief
Led down the years and tended by the soft,