Comfort will come to you, my son, to me,

Even to your mother, comfort; but to us

Knowledge, at least—the certainty of things

Which, as I think, is consolation’s sum.

For truly now, to-day, to-morrow, yes,

Days many more to come, alike to you,

Whose earliest revelation of the world

Is, horrible indeed, this fatal fact—

And unto me, who, knowing not much before,

Look gropingly and idly into this,