. now it is hard to die.

PART V

WINTER

_We, whom God sets a task,
Striving, who ne'er attain,
We are the curst!--who ask
Death, and still ask in vain.
We, whom God sets a task._

1

_In the silence of his room. After many days._

All, all are shadows. All must pass
As writing in the sand or sea;
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.

The days that mould us--what are they?
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.

Linked through the ages, one and all,
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.

Within us still the monster shape
That shrieked in air and howled in slime,
What are we?--partly man and ape--
The tools of fate, the toys of time!

2

_The bitterness of his bereavement speaks in him._

Vased in her bedroom window, white
As her chaste girlhood, never lost,
I smelt the roses--and the night
Outside was fog and frost.

What though I claimed her dying there!
God nor one angel understood
Nor cared, who from sweet feet to hair
Had changed to snow her blood.

She had been mine so long, so long!
Our harp of life was one in word--
Why did death thrust his hand among
The chords and break one chord!

A placid lily was the face,
A sad pale rose the mouth I kissed
That morn, when filled with Heaven's own grace
She passed into the mist.

3

_Her dead face seems to rise up before him._

The face that I said farewell to,
Pillowed a flower on flowers,
Comes back with its eyes to tell to
My soul what its lips would spell too--
Comes back to me at hours!--

Dear, is your heart still daggered
There by something amiss?
Love--is he still a laggard?
Hope--is her face still haggard
Tell me what it is!

You, who are done with To-morrow!
Done with these worldly skies!
Done with our pain and sorrow!
Done with the griefs we borrow!
Prayers and tears and sighs!

Must we say "gone forever"?
Or will it all come true?
Shall I attain to you ever?
And, o'er the doubts that sever,
Rise to the truth that's you?

Love, in my flesh so fearful,
Medicine me this pain!--
Love, with the eyes so tearful,
How can my soul be cheerful,
Seeing its joy is slain!