SORROW.
Sorrow and I so long have lived together
How would it seem now if we had to part?
So many storms we two have had to weather,
Such thunders heard! following the lightning’s dart!
Come, Sorrow, now what say you to a truce?
Wilt lift the cloudy curtain so long hung
Around our fates, those heavy rings unloose,
Let fly the fetters that have made us one?
And yet it might be—I should miss thee, Sorrow!
Thy constancy to me has been so great,
Thy shadow banished from my life to-morrow,
What earthly lover on me thus would wait?
For thou art sent from heaven, a sacred guest.
And though, sweet Sorrow, I’ll not bid thee stay,
Yet to those sins I bear one more confest
Were this: that I turned Heaven’s guest away.
A. T. L.