I closed my manuscript,
And locked it in my desk. Then stealing forth,
I sought the bustle of the street, to drown
In the great roar of careless toil, the pain
That brings despair. My last resource was gone;
And as I brooded o'er the awful blank
Of hopeless life that waited for my steps,
A fear which I had feared to entertain
Found entrance to my heart, and held it still,
Almost to bursting.
Not alone my life
Was sliding from me; for my better life,
My pearl of price, the jewel in my crown,
My wife Kathrina, growing lovelier
With every passing day, arose each morn
From wasting dreams to paler loveliness,
And sank in growing weariness each night,
And hotter hectic, to her welcome bed.
Her bed! The sweet, the precious nuptial bed!
Bed sanctified by love! Bed blest of God
With fruit immortal! Bed too soon to be
Crowned with the glory of a Christian death!
Ah God! How it brought back the agony,
And the rebellious hate of other years—
The hopeless struggle of my will with Him
Whose will is law!
Thus torn with mingled thought:
Of fear, despair and spite, I wore away
Miles of wild wandering about the streets,
Till weariness at last compelled my feet
To drag me to my home.
Before my door
Stood the familiar chair of one whose call
Was ominous of ill. My heart grew sick
With flutter of foreboding and foredoom;
But in swift silence I flew up the steps,
And, blind with stifled frenzy, reached the side
Of my poor wife. She smiled at seeing me,
But I could only kneel, and bathe her hands
With tears and kisses. In her gentle breast—
True home of love, and love and home to me—
The blood had burst its walls, and flowed in flame
From lips it left in ashes.
In her smile
Of perfect trustfulness, I caught first glimpse
Of that aureola of fadeless light
Which spans my lonely couch, and kindles hope
That when my time shall come to follow her,
My spirit may go out, enwreathed and wrapped
By the familiar glory, which to-night
Shall brood o'er all my vigils and my dreams!
DESPAIR.
Ah! what is so dead as a perished delight!
Or a passion outlived! or a scheme overthrown!
Save the bankrupt heart it has left in its flight,
Still as quick as the eye, but as cold as a stone!
The honey-bee hoards for its winter-long need,
The treasure it gathers in joy from the flowers;
And drinks in each sip of its silvery mead
The flavor and flush of the sweet summer hours.
But a pleasure expires at its earliest breath:
No labor can hoard it, no cunning can save;
For the song of its life is the sigh of its death,
And the sense it has thrilled is its shroud and its grave.