IX. EURYDICE.
47 lines✦
s this the portent of the day nigh past,And of a restless graveO'er which the eternal sadness gathers fast;Or but the heaped waveOf some chance, wandering tide,Such as that world of aweWhose circuit, listening to a foreign law,Conjunctures ours at unguess'd dates and wide,Does in the Spirit's tremulous ocean draw,To pass unfateful on, and so subside?Thee, whom ev'n more than Heaven loved I have,And yet have not been trueEven to thee,I, dreaming, night by night, seek now to see,And, in a mortal sorrow, still pursueThro' sordid streets and lanesAnd houses brown and bareAnd many a haggard stairOchrous with ancient stains,And infamous doors, opening on hapless rooms,In whose unhaunted gloomsDead pauper generations, witless of the sun,Their course have run;And ofttimes my pursuitIs check'd of its dear fruitBy things brimful of hate, my kith and kin,Furious that I should keepTheir forfeit power to weep,And mock, with living fear, their mournful malice thin.But ever, at the last, my way I winTo where, with perfectly sad patience, nurstBy sorry comfort of assured worst,Ingrain'd in fretted cheek and lips that pine,On pallet poorThou lyest, stricken sick,Beyond love's cure,By all the world's neglect, but chiefly mine.Then sweetness, sweeter than my tongue can tell,Does in my bosom well,And tears come free and quickAnd more and more aboundFor piteous passion keen at having found,After exceeding ill, a little good;A little goodWhich, for the while,Fleets with the current sorrow of the blood,Though no good here has heart enough to smile.
✦