Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,

Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's

rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of

the fool!

Well-'tis well that I should bluster!-Hadst thou less unworthy proved

Would to God-for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?

will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the

root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come

As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the

mind?

Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and

move:

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?

No-she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,

That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier

things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken

sleep,

To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice

will cry.

"Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down my latest rival brings thee rest.

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.

Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the

two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

They were dangerous guides the feelings-she herself was not exempt—

Truly, she herself had suffer'd "-Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it lower yet-be happy! wherefore should I care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets over

flow.

I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,

When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour

feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's

heels.