Spenser.
Aloe.... Grief.
The Aloe is attached to the soil by very feeble roots; it delights to grow in the wilderness, and its taste is extremely bitter. Thus grief separates us from earthly things, and fills the heart with bitterness. These magnificent and monstrous plants are found in barbarous Africa: they grow upon rocks, in dry sand under a burning atmosphere. Some have leaves six feet long, and armed with long spires. From the centre of these leaves shoots up a slender stem covered with flowers.
Sister Sorrow! sit beside me,
Or, if I must wander, guide me:
Let me take thy hand in mine,
Cold alike are mine and thine.
Think not, Sorrow, that I hate thee,—
Think not I am frightened at thee,—
Thou art come for some good end;
I will treat thee as a friend.
R. M. Milnes.
And this is all I have left now,
Silence and solitude and tears;
The memory of a broken vow,
My blighted hopes, my wasted years!
Anon.
It may be that I shall forget my grief;
It may be time has good in store for me;
It may be that my heart will find relief
From sources now unknown. Futurity
May bear within its folds some hidden spring
From which will issue blessed streams; and yet
Whate’er of joy the coming year may bring,
The past—the past—I never can forget.
Of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs:
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let’s choose executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not so—for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies in the ground?