Groping for flowers the opposing wall beneath,
Who, flushed and breathless, may at last emerge,
With a few scanty blossoms for a wreath.
But never was a cloud so thick and black,
But it might some time break, and on its track
The glorious sun come streaming. Never, too,
So but its threads might bleach to lighter hue,
Was sorrow's mantle of so deep a dye.
And he who, peering at the troubled sky,
Looks past the clouds, or looks the cloud-rifts through,