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No entertainment ever yet
Had half the exquisite completeness—
The gladness without one regret,
You gather from your darling's sweetness;
An angel sits beside the hearth
Where e'er an innocent child is found on earth.
Had half the exquisite completeness—
The gladness without one regret,
You gather from your darling's sweetness;
An angel sits beside the hearth
Where e'er an innocent child is found on earth.
TO MRS.
I have not found the meaning out
That lies in wrong, and pain and strife;
I know not why we grope through grief,
Tear-blind, to touch the higher life.
That lies in wrong, and pain and strife;
I know not why we grope through grief,
Tear-blind, to touch the higher life.
In my unconscious viens there runs,
Perchance, some old ancestral taint;
In Eve I sinned. Poor Eve and I!
We each may utter one complaint—
Perchance, some old ancestral taint;
In Eve I sinned. Poor Eve and I!
We each may utter one complaint—
One and the same—for knowledge came
Too late to save her paradise;
And I my paradise have lost
Forsooth because I am not wise.
Too late to save her paradise;
And I my paradise have lost
Forsooth because I am not wise.
O, vain traditions, small the aid
We women gather from your lore;
Why, when the world was lost, did death
Not come our children's birth before?
We women gather from your lore;
Why, when the world was lost, did death
Not come our children's birth before?
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