'T IS toil must help us to forget. In strife, they say, grief finds repose. Well, there's the game! I throw the stakes: -- A life of war, a world of foes, A heart that triumphs while it breaks. Some day I too, perchance, may lose This shade which memory o'er me throws, And laugh as others laugh, (who knows?) But ah, 't will not be yet! How many years since she and I Walked that old terrace, hand-in-hand! Just one star in the rosy sky, And silence on the summer land. And she? ... I think I hear her sing That song, -- the last of all our songs. How all comes back! -- thing after thing, The old life o'er me throngs! But I must to the palace go; The ambassador's to-morrow: Here's little time for thought, I know, And little more for sorrow. Already in the @3porte-cochere@1 The carriage sounds...my hat and gloves! I hear my friend's foot on the stair, -- How joyously it moves! He must have done some wicked thing To make him tread so light: Or is it only that the king Admired his wife last night? We talk of nations by the way, And praise the Nuncio's manners, And end with something fine to say About the "allied banners." 'T is well to mix with all conditions Of men in every station: I sup to-morrow with musicians, Upon the invitation Of my clever friend, the journalist, Who writes the reading plays Which no one reads; a socialist Most social in his ways. But I am sick of all the din That's made in praising Verdi, Who only know a violin Is not a hurdy-gurdy. Here oft, while on a nerveless hand An aching brow reclining, Through this tall window where I stand, I see the great town shining. Hard by, the restless Boulevart roars, Heard all the night through, even in dreaming: While from its hundred open doors The many-headed Life is streaming. Upon the world's wide thoroughfares My lot is cast. So be it! Each on his back his burthen bears, And feels, though he may not see it. My life is not more hard than theirs Who toil on either side: They cry for quiet in their prayers, And it is still denied. But sometimes, when I stand alone, Life pauses, -- now and then: And in the distance dies the moan Of miserable men. As in a dream (how strange!) I seem To be lapsing, slowly, slowly, From noise and strife, to a stiller life, Where all is husht and holy. Ah, love! our way's in a stranger land. We may not rest together. For an Angel takes me by the hand, And leads me...whither? whither? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A SEA DIALOGUE by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES AFTERMATH by SIEGFRIED SASSOON RUMORS FROM AN AEOLIAN HARP by HENRY DAVID THOREAU DOVE RIVER ANTHOLOGY, BY OWN WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: LUCY GRAY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS BE STILL, MY SOUL by ARCHILOCHUS SONG OF SOLOMON: AWAKE by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE PETITION (1) by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |