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Sorrow voices.
Her weeds are wrapped about my head, and all
Her billows and her waves pass over me!
Take not in vain the sacred name of hope,
Nor plague my soul with any show of comfort.
Oh hope! oh joy! sweet words how blank to me!
Cold as the faces of estrangèd friends!
Familiar words, but foreign as are sounds
Of common life to one who weeps apart,
With death for. company. Behold! behold!
A desert without cleft or cave to hide in
I cross alone; nor dare to look beyond,
Where looms the phantom of a shoreless sea;
And o'er its waste, sore wounded and pursued,
A bird that flutters on—but never finds
Refuge or rest.
How shall I comfort thee,
Possessed with anguish? Weep beside thee here?
Stretch to the measure of thy fro ward griefs
My gift of pity? Count my tears by thine?
Give sigh for sigh? Oh, magnify thy hurt!
Be vain of thy affliction! I distrust
The grief that knows so well its own proportions.
Her billows and her waves pass over me!
Take not in vain the sacred name of hope,
Nor plague my soul with any show of comfort.
Oh hope! oh joy! sweet words how blank to me!
Cold as the faces of estrangèd friends!
Familiar words, but foreign as are sounds
Of common life to one who weeps apart,
With death for. company. Behold! behold!
A desert without cleft or cave to hide in
I cross alone; nor dare to look beyond,
Where looms the phantom of a shoreless sea;
And o'er its waste, sore wounded and pursued,
A bird that flutters on—but never finds
Refuge or rest.
How shall I comfort thee,
Possessed with anguish? Weep beside thee here?
Stretch to the measure of thy fro ward griefs
My gift of pity? Count my tears by thine?
Give sigh for sigh? Oh, magnify thy hurt!
Be vain of thy affliction! I distrust
The grief that knows so well its own proportions.
