Nor let the good man’s trust depart,
  Though life its common gifts deny,—­
Though with a pierced and bleeding heart,
  And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God hath marked each sorrowing day
  And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven’s long age of bliss shall pay
  For all his children suffer here.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

DE PROFUNDIS.

The face which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With daily love, is dimmed away—­
    And yet my days go on, go on.

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with “Good day”
Make each day good, is hushed away—­
    And yet my days go on, go on.

The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day,
With steadfast love is caught away—­
    And yet my days go on, go on.

The world goes whispering to its own,
“This anguish pierces to the bone.” 
And tender friends go sighing round,
“What love can ever cure this wound?”
    My days go on, my days go on.

The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night.  O dreams begun,
Not to be ended!  Ended bliss! 
And life, that will not end in this! 
    My days go on, my days go on.

Breath freezes on my lips to moan: 
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature’s door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
    Whose desolated days go on.

I knock and cry—­Undone, undone! 
Is there no help, no comfort—­none? 
No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains
Where others drive their loaded wains? 
    My vacant days go on, go on.

This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June. 
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such.  What is for me,
    Whose days so winterly go on?

No bird am I to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon. 
Good nests and berries red are Nature’s
To give away to better creatures—­
    And yet my days go on, go on.

I ask less kindness to be done—­
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet,
    Till days go out which now go on.

Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say, “Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
    Forgetting how the days go on.”

A Voice reproves me thereupon,
More sweet than Nature’s, when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep
Than when the rivers overleap
    The shuddering pines, and thunder on.

God’s Voice, not Nature’s—­night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne,
And listens for the creature’s praise. 
What babble we of days and days? 
    The Dayspring he, whose days go on!