AN OLD-WORLD THICKET.
391
More leaden than the actual self of lead Outer and inner darkness weighed on me. The tide of anger ebbed. Then fierce and free Surged full above my head The moaning tide of helpless misery.
Why should I breathe, whose breath was but a sigh? Why should I live, who drew such painful breath?Oh weary work, the unanswerable why!— Yet I, why should I die, Who had no hope in life, no hope in death?
Grasses and mosses and the fallen leaf Make peaceful bed for an indefinite term; But underneath the grass there gnaws a worm— Haply, there gnaws a grief—Both, haply always; not, as now, so brief.
The pleasure I remember, it is past; The pain I feel, is passing passing by; Thus all the world is passing, and thus I: All things that cannot last Have grown familiar, and are born to die.
And being familiar, have so long been borne That habit trains us not to break but bend:Mourning grows natural to us who mourn In foresight of an end, But that which ends not who shall brave or mend?
