Are implements enough for me!
To-morrow is my working day,
Simple shepherds all—
For the farmer’s sheep is slain, and the lad who did it ta’en,
And on his soul may God ha’ mercy!
That love proves itself at best a pathetic compromise is plainly gleaned from the pages of the poems. There is sounded no joyous though momentary content in heart-possession: nothing there we find but a record of youth, its dreams darkened and blighted by the false promises of time; bitter retrospect of age beholding a heavy philosophy scrawling on all fair things of life and faith the epitaph of fragility and decay. The earth-bound character of the poet’s thought is well illustrated in the following lines:
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstacy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”