the story of two lives.
9
I glance on high at yon relentless heaven,
Its stern attesting witness has been given,
And there is sentence in its silence. Where
Obtain remission from my doubts? The air
Is void of answer; all is still; no sound
Save ripe loose acorns rustling to the ground
With sudden, muffled, fall . . . and, hark! a song
Borne faintly by the echoes. While among
The wild dark coverts of this haunted wood
I've crept to die, by vengeful shades pursued,
My wife is singing in our home; so wide
The fate-drawn rifts which soul from soul divide.
Strange, how those notes seem searching to be heard,
Ringing and sharp, like dagger-thrusts, each word;
Strange, too, how that clear crystal voice of hers
Chills the fond pathos of the quaint old verse:
"Youth, Love, and Death," persistently repeat
The echoes that refrain, "Sweet, angel sweet."
Must then the inexorable third come in,
Where'er the first their Orphic rhyme begin?—
Alas! that concord—one poor life fulfilled,
That mournful sequence one poor heart has stilled;
And I am hastening to the self-same fate,
I break the tardy hinges of the gate,
Its stern attesting witness has been given,
And there is sentence in its silence. Where
Obtain remission from my doubts? The air
Is void of answer; all is still; no sound
Save ripe loose acorns rustling to the ground
With sudden, muffled, fall . . . and, hark! a song
Borne faintly by the echoes. While among
The wild dark coverts of this haunted wood
I've crept to die, by vengeful shades pursued,
My wife is singing in our home; so wide
The fate-drawn rifts which soul from soul divide.
Strange, how those notes seem searching to be heard,
Ringing and sharp, like dagger-thrusts, each word;
Strange, too, how that clear crystal voice of hers
Chills the fond pathos of the quaint old verse:
"Youth, Love, and Death," persistently repeat
The echoes that refrain, "Sweet, angel sweet."
Must then the inexorable third come in,
Where'er the first their Orphic rhyme begin?—
Alas! that concord—one poor life fulfilled,
That mournful sequence one poor heart has stilled;
And I am hastening to the self-same fate,
I break the tardy hinges of the gate,
