World-sorrow have I known, like unto God. Nothing there is of pain but echoes down My breast with wan reverberance and pang, And peaceless passes thro it evermore.
The struck bird's cry wounds my all-feeling blood To pity that will not be solacèd, Sounds on me like far pleas of the unborn Against predestined days. A withering bud
Brews barrenness thro all the verdancy Of Spring. And in a tear — tho anguish shape it On the warm lid of joy — earth's Tragedy, Whose curtain falls not for it has no end,
Comes mirrored to me as infinite Ill. How shall I‘ scape it! How, O how escape The trooping of prayers lost upon the void, Of hopes misborn and fading not to rest!
How shall I burn not with all vain-lit loves That alway billow thro me their slow fire Fed by the agony of new-broke hearts! How loose me from too long commisery
For those whom unrequiting Time has given To the altar of the aching world's unrest! A grief immitigable to the Hand Whose mystery of returning sun can heal
Winter away, seems here; a grief but calm Of immortality can make forgiven! For even as all the gleaming girth of stars That wreathe the Illimitable beauteously
Quench not the vast of night, so do all joys Life strews along her passing to the grave Prevail not o'er the shadow of sure death. And O Humanity, long-suffering Harp
Of passion-strings unnumbered, shall His skill Flung thus forever o'er thy fragile rest Build but these harmonies that seem sometimes Unworth the misery of the trampled worm?
Would, would I were not vibrant with all strains He strikes from thee, or else more perfect tuned! World-sorrow have I known, like unto God.
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