Poems (May)/Sorrow voices
SORROW VOICES.
I'll wrap me in my sorrow's ample folds,
As in a winding-sheet; and, doomed to life,
I'll counterfeit the grave. Nor song of bird,
Nor touch of sunbeam, shall call up again
My forehead from the dust. Prone, lying thus,
I hear my dreary years come moaning in
Like cold, slow waves—let them break over me!
Here will I lie, as one in lethargy.
My dumb grief stretched beside me.
Peace! art thou
The first to suffer? Measure with great ills
Thy small adversities! Dispose thyself
To learn life's common and distasteful lesson.
To weigh my anguish with another's pain
Will make it none the lighter, and, distinct
'Tis shapen from the common mass of sorrow;
Nor can I lose it in a crowd of griefs.
Be sure that it is large enough to fill
My aching heart.
As mothers clasp their babes,
Thou hold'st it there. As mothers chide their offspring,
Thou dost complain of it, yet snatch it back,
If part withdrawn; and, when its fretful life
Is quite extinct, no doubt thou wilt enfold it
As mothers clasp dead infants to their bosoms.
As in a winding-sheet; and, doomed to life,
I'll counterfeit the grave. Nor song of bird,
Nor touch of sunbeam, shall call up again
My forehead from the dust. Prone, lying thus,
I hear my dreary years come moaning in
Like cold, slow waves—let them break over me!
Here will I lie, as one in lethargy.
My dumb grief stretched beside me.
Peace! art thou
The first to suffer? Measure with great ills
Thy small adversities! Dispose thyself
To learn life's common and distasteful lesson.
To weigh my anguish with another's pain
Will make it none the lighter, and, distinct
'Tis shapen from the common mass of sorrow;
Nor can I lose it in a crowd of griefs.
Be sure that it is large enough to fill
My aching heart.
As mothers clasp their babes,
Thou hold'st it there. As mothers chide their offspring,
Thou dost complain of it, yet snatch it back,
If part withdrawn; and, when its fretful life
Is quite extinct, no doubt thou wilt enfold it
As mothers clasp dead infants to their bosoms.
How terrible must be the countenance
Of a dead grief!
Ay, grief untimely dead,
Slain in its prime, struck down by violent hands—
Say shame or scorn. Its desolate white shape,
Uncoffined, lies in some still separate chamber
That thought goes by, a-tiptoe, that's a bugbear
To the sweet infant, joy. Not so the grief
Led down the years and tended by the soft,
Sweet, unobtrusive charities of time.
But these are rare. Nine-tenths of all the woes
Petted to death, love-stinted of their growth,
Die pigmies. Is it precious to thy soul?
Make not a tender darling of thy sorrow,
But school it roughly in the ways of life,
Till from a vexing tyrant it shall grow
To be thy chiefest friend and counsellor.
Griefs rightly nurtured die not till they flower;
So keep thy trouble—we have leave to suffer.
Of a dead grief!
Ay, grief untimely dead,
Slain in its prime, struck down by violent hands—
Say shame or scorn. Its desolate white shape,
Uncoffined, lies in some still separate chamber
That thought goes by, a-tiptoe, that's a bugbear
To the sweet infant, joy. Not so the grief
Led down the years and tended by the soft,
Sweet, unobtrusive charities of time.
But these are rare. Nine-tenths of all the woes
Petted to death, love-stinted of their growth,
Die pigmies. Is it precious to thy soul?
Make not a tender darling of thy sorrow,
But school it roughly in the ways of life,
Till from a vexing tyrant it shall grow
To be thy chiefest friend and counsellor.
Griefs rightly nurtured die not till they flower;
So keep thy trouble—we have leave to suffer.
Thy words are like the braying of the trumpets
To one who bleeds upon a battle field.
There is no heart in me for noble doing.
If the old fiery impulse prompt again,
'Tis but an impulse. Who so wise in sorrow
As they who pay lip service at her shrines?
Who, standing safe beside her awful gulfs,
Guess at their depths, and measure with cold glances
What souls have fathomed! Wouldst thou counsel me?
Let grief expound the meaning of those words
Thou say est so well. Earth with her bars surrounds mp,
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.
Great sorrows rule like Jove upon Olympus,
And though sometimes the lightnings issue thence,
And full-toned voices intimate his presence,
Be sure the god will never quit his cloud.
They come on missions, lifted cross in hand,
To preach us from our idols. They draw near
Our tranced souls, and, weeping tears divine,
Call till they rise and stagger to the light,
Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes. Mighty trials
Are sent to mighty spirits that have sinew
To grapple with them. Oh! we dress our puppets
In the full robes of sorrow, and adore them;
We bring our foolish and unchastened hearts
Into Heaven's very presence; there count o'er
The baubles it has broken, and bewail them.
Mothers do pity in their weeping charges
The baby griefs they smile at. It is well
That we are children in the sight of God!
To one who bleeds upon a battle field.
There is no heart in me for noble doing.
If the old fiery impulse prompt again,
'Tis but an impulse. Who so wise in sorrow
As they who pay lip service at her shrines?
Who, standing safe beside her awful gulfs,
Guess at their depths, and measure with cold glances
What souls have fathomed! Wouldst thou counsel me?
Let grief expound the meaning of those words
Thou say est so well. Earth with her bars surrounds mp,
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.
Great sorrows rule like Jove upon Olympus,
And though sometimes the lightnings issue thence,
And full-toned voices intimate his presence,
Be sure the god will never quit his cloud.
They come on missions, lifted cross in hand,
To preach us from our idols. They draw near
Our tranced souls, and, weeping tears divine,
Call till they rise and stagger to the light,
Bound hand and foot with grave-clothes. Mighty trials
Are sent to mighty spirits that have sinew
To grapple with them. Oh! we dress our puppets
In the full robes of sorrow, and adore them;
We bring our foolish and unchastened hearts
Into Heaven's very presence; there count o'er
The baubles it has broken, and bewail them.
Mothers do pity in their weeping charges
The baby griefs they smile at. It is well
That we are children in the sight of God!