"INCONSOLABILE."
I am waiting on the margin
Of the dark, cold, rushing tide;
All I love have passed before me,
And have reached the other side:
Only unto me a passage
Through the waters is denied.
Mist and gloom o'erhang the river,
Gloom and mist the landscape veil.
Straining for the shores of promise,
Sight and hope and feeling fail.
Not a sigh, a breath, a motion,
Answers to my feeble wail.
[{838}]
Surely they have all forgot me
'Mid the wonders they have found
In the far enchanted mansions;
Out of heart and sight and sound,
Here I sit, like Judah's daughters,
Desolate upon the ground.
Strangers' feet the stream are stemming,
Stranger faces pass me by,
Willing some, and some reluctant,
All have leave to cross but I—
I, the hopeless, all bereaved,
Loathing life, that long to die!
Be the river ne'er so turbid,
Chill and angry, deep and drear,
All my loved ones are gone over,
Daunted not by doubt or fear;
And my spirit reaches after,
While I sit lamenting here.
Happy waters that embraced them,
Happier regions hid from sight,
Where my keen, far-stretching vision,
Dazed and baffled, lost them quite.
Dread, immeasurable distance
'Twixt the darkness and the light!
And I know that never, never,
Till this weak, repining breast
Still its murmurs into patience,
Yonder from the region blest
Shall there break a streak of radiance,
And upon the river rest.
I shall hail the mystic token
Bright'ning all the waters o'er,
Struggle through the threat'ning torrent
Till I reach the further shore;
Wonder then, my blind eyes opened,
That I had not trusted more.