There is no word to comfort me;
No sign to ease my cross-bowed head:
Deep night is in the heart of me,
And in my soul is dread.
To strive, it seems, that I was born,
For that which others shall obtain;
The disappointment and the scorn
Alone for me remain.
One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate—
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.
Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire:
While inwardly I know the lack
Of thought, the paucity of power,
Each past day’s retrospect makes black
Each onward-coming hour.
Now in my youth would I could die!
Would God that I could lay me down
And pass away without a sigh,
Oblivious of renown!
NIGHTFALL
O day, so sicklied o’er with night!
O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk!—
A Circe orange, golden-bright,
With horror ’neath its husk.—
And I, who gave the promise heed
That made life’s tempting surface fair,
Have I not eaten to the seed
Its ashes of despair!
O silence of the drifted grass!
And immemorial eloquence
Of stars and winds and waves that pass!
And God’s indifference!