Ventures.
Finite to fail, but infinite to venture.
For the one ship that struts the shore
Many’s the gallant, overwhelmed creature
Nodding in navies nevermore.
Griefs.
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.
I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.
I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled —
Some thousands — on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;
Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies, —
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.
There’s grief of want, and grief of cold, —
A sort they call ‘despair;’
There’s banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.
And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,
To note the fashions of the cross,
Of those that stand alone,
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.
I have a king who does not speak;
So, wondering, thro’ the hours meek
I trudge the day away,—
Half glad when it is night and sleep,
If, haply, thro’ a dream to peep
In parlors shut by day.
And if I do, when morning comes,
It is as if a hundred drums
Did round my pillow roll,
And shouts fill all my childish sky,
And bells keep saying ‘victory’
From steeples in my soul!
And if I don’t, the little Bird
Within the Orchard is not heard,
And I omit to pray,
‘Father, thy will be done’ to-day,
For my will goes the other way,
And it were perjury!
Disenchantment.
It dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;
Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.
Lost faith.
To lose one’s faith surpasses
The loss of an estate,
Because estates can be
Replenished, — faith cannot.
