THIS is the doom I must henceforth fulfil: To hide my heart through days, and months, and years; To look in anxious eyes, and lull their fears; To lose all hope, and strive with joyless will; To sing and pray, scarce knowing good from ill; To hear stale converse, as an idiot hears; To tread the cloistered courts with burning tears, Forced backward to their fount, yet rising still. Nay, there is comfort! E'en the sick may smile, Knowing for pain a swift and gentle cure; I can be patient, and can wait awhile, Nor curse the heedless heavens with moaning breath: Though for a night my weeping may endure, Joy comes with morn -- that joy whose name is Death. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DESTINY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? by PAUL VERLAINE MORNING IN CAMP by HERBERT BASHFORD WHERE A ROMAN VILLA STOOD, ABOVE FREIBURG' by MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE THE RETIRED CAT by WILLIAM COWPER |