Where is comfort? in division of the records of the

mind?

Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her,

kind?

I remember one that perished: sweetly did she speak

and move:

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to

love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?

No-she never loved me truly love is love forever

more.

Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth the

poet sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier

things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,

In the dead, unhappy night, and when the rain is on the

roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at

the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his

drunken sleep,

To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou

wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine

ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on

thy pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest

again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice

will cry.

'T is a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble

dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.

Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings she herself was not exempt

Truly, she herself had suffered "— Perish in thy selfcontempt !

Overlive it — lower yet

care?

lower yet be happy! wherefore should I

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow.

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's

ground,

When the ranks are rolled in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that

Honor feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier

page.

Hide me from my deep emotion, oh thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the

strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my

life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer

drawn,

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary

dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him

then,

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could

see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that

would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic

sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly

bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew

From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central

blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battleflags were furled

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.