Artemis to Actæon (1909)/Grief

by Edith Wharton

For works with similar titles, see Grief.

 

GRIEF

IOn immemorial altitudes augustGrief holds her high dominion. Bold the feetThat climb unblenching to that stern retreatWhence, looking down, man knows himself but dust.There lie the mightiest passions, earthward thrustBeneath her regnant footstool, and there meetPale ghosts of buried longings that were sweet,With many an abdicated "shall" and "must."

For there she rules omnipotent, whose willCompels a mute acceptance of her chart;Who holds the world, and lo! it cannot fillHer mighty hand; who will be served apartWith uncommunicable rites, and stillSurrender of the undivided heart.

IIShe holds the world within her mighty hand,And lo! it is a toy for babes to toss,And all its shining imagery but dross,To those that in her awful presence stand;As sun-confronting eagles o'er the landThat lies below, they send their gaze acrossThe common intervals of gain and loss,And hope's infinitude without a strand.

But he who, on that lonely eminence,Watches too long the whirling of the spheresThrough dim eternities, descending thenceThe voices of his kind no longer hears,And, blinded by the spectacle immense,Journeys alone through all the after years.