I know she meant all good to me, all pain

To herself,—since how could it be aught but pain

To give me up, so, from her very breast,

The wilding flower-tree-branch that, all those years,

She had got used to feel for and find fixed?

She meant well: has it been so ill i' the main?

That is but fair to ask: one cannot judge

Of what has been the ill or well of life,

The day that one is dying,—sorrows change

Into not altogether sorrow-like;